News from our rich agriculture history

The Farms.com farm and rural history website is dedicated to celebrating and digitizing the last 150 years of success in the Canadian agriculture and food industry. The agriculture and food industries in Canada have a rich heritage of innovation, and have laid a foundation of excellence upon which we continue to grow. We celebrate Canada’s food and agriculture innovations on these pages.

Impressions of the Prairies

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED | JULY 8, 1920 | THE FARMER'S ADVOCATE

I think I was up somewhere about Fort William when I sent ye that last letter tellin’ o’ my hardships an’ givin’ ye my impressions o’ the country I was passin’ through.

Well, it gets to be a wee bit mair civilized lookin’ as one gets nearer Winnipeg an’, first thing ye ken ye’ve left the swamps an’ the rocks behind an’

This cartoon appeared in the February 1955 edition of Better Farming magazine. It was drawn by the cartoonist Walt Wetterberg who made a career using humour and cartoons

This is an example of a late-19th century draft-powered potato planter. It is unclear when this particular model was produced and by whom. The mechanical potato planter,

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Who Should Go Back?

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED | MAY 16, 1912 | THE FARMER'S ADVOCATE

America has long been deeply concerned about the never-ceasing flow of rural population from its country homes to the industrial centres. This worry now seems not to be exclusively confined to the New World, for we are told that France, the nation which prided itself upon its scientifically adjusted tariff and a perfect system, of small holdings, intended to keep the rural population happy,

Freeman Boyd

OCTOBER 7, 1952 – JUNE 22, 2017

Farmer; outdoorsman; passionate local food advocate. Born Oct. 7, 1952; died June 22, 2017 in Meaford, age 64.

A foundational figure for local food in Grey and Bruce Counties, Freeman Boyd died suddenly following a cardiac event at his home in late June.

Raised on a Guelph-area poultry farm, Freeman and his wife, Marion, acquired their own farm near Walters’ Falls in the 1970s.

“We travelled a bit and … wanted to buy some property in Ontario somewhere (but) didn’t have much money,” Marion said in a recent interview,

John L. Stansell

JUNE 17, 1875 – OCTOBER 21, 1956

John Lawrence Stansell was a model Ontarian farmer and livestock breeder who actively involved himself in the development and growth of the livestock industry. He was born on June 17, 1875 in Haughton, Norfolk County, the son of Joseph A. Stansell, a descendant of United Empire loyalists. He attended public school in Aylmer before attending the Collegiate Institute in the same town, reaching an academic level that was considerably higher than that of the average farm boy of the time. Upon his completion of school, he took up the farmer’s calling, something that most young men of such

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News from our rich agriculture history

Impressions of the Prairies

Ada the Ayrshire

Potato Planter

Who Should Go Back?

lives lived

Freeman Boyd

John L. Stansell