News from our rich agriculture history

Harvey Farrington holds the momentous distinction of establishing one of the central pillars of the Canadian dairy industry - commercial cheesemaking. Although farmers have been making cheese for as long as history records, the industrial production of cheese is an innovation of the nineteenth century. Harvey Farrington was responsible for laying the foundations of this valuable export industry in Canada, although he was not born here.

Harvey Farrington was born on March 29, 1809 in Herkimer County, New York. Not much is known about his early life, except that by the age of

William Blackwood was a skilled machinist and agriculturalist, who served as a visionary instructor of agricultural engineering at the Ontario Agricultural College for most of his career. He taught at a time when most farmers were still using horse-drawn machines and rural Ontario was plagued with inefficiencies, making his innovative work and visionary mind all the more important. Blackwood ushered in a transitional era of scientific ingenuity and expansion, during which time steam and gasoline powered tractors first began to develop into viable farming equipment.

William