Geography Reference
In-Depth Information
undertaken, “optimists” argue that
resilience,
not failure, characterized
English farming in difficult circumstances.
7
The role of rural rail trans-
port in response to the agrarian depression in this literature, whether it is
optimistic or pessimistic, is usually absent or mentioned only in passing.
8
The same is true in research on French agriculture in the second
half of the nineteenth century. By and large, studies of agricultural
performance and the depression in particular concern themselves with
the national level alone, and studies of specific regions are only begin-
ning to appear.
9
Meanwhile, debate over French agriculture echoes
that over British farming. French pessimists marshal evidence old and
new to demonstrate that French agriculture lagged behind Britain and
most of western Europe.
10
Optimists respond with new data and argu-
ments that the French system of small farming was more rational and
productive than commonly thought.
11
Within France itself, a long-held
generalization is that in agriculture - as in industry - the country was
divided between the developed north and the less developed south. On
the issue of regional disparities, new opportunities for comparative spa-
tial history abound, thanks in part to Jean-Claude Toutain's work on re-
gional variations in productivity growth from 1810 to 1990.
12
One major
finding was that north-south disparities narrowed after 1860 and that
growth rates in the two regions converged at the end of the nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, owing in large part to the increased
productivity of the wine and market-gardening sectors in the south.
Toutain's data and argument bring welcome atention to the issue of ag-
ricultural restructuring after 1850 and renew debate. One recent article,
for example, argues, rather unpersuasively, that regional specialization
of the kind that developed in Britain was largely absent in France from
1870 to 1914.
13
In fact, the issue calls out for further research. In our
larger work we answer the call, showing that the geographic restruc-
turing of French agriculture was much facilitated by railway expan-
sion. Although we do not pursue the broader paterns here, our analy-
sis of the Department of the Côte-d'Or in Burgundy illustrates our
approach.
With our problem in its historiographical frame, we can now con-
sider tools and methods. How can our questions about spatial relation-
ships and changes over time be systematically addressed? Time was
