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.

An Enthusiastic Crowd Inspects Millhills Comet

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED | JUNE 17, 1920 | THE FARMER'S ADVOCATE

An event of unusual interest took place at the farm of J. J. Elliot, Guelph on Wednesday June 9, when upwards of six hundred farmers and city people gathered to inspect Millhills Comet, the $34,000 Shorthorn bull and to do honour to his owner who showed faith in the livestock industry of Canada by paying this record price for a herd sire and taking the risk of bringing him across the Atlantic.

This cartoon appeared in the March 1955 issue of Better Farming Magazine. It depicts Jupe Pluvius - a shorthand name for the Roman God Jupiter, the “Rain

This antique scroll saw used a treadle, similar to old sewing machines, to power the motion of the saw. The user would place their feet on the pedals and alternate steps

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Haymaking at the Ontario Agricultural College

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED | JUNE 30, 1912 | THE FARMER'S ADVOCATE

Our system of making hay varies considerably with the conditions under which we are working. Some years hay will cure much more quickly than others, owing to differences in weather conditions or in the rankness of the growth. We seldom cut red clover until it is in full bloom. In favorable weather is is usually cut one day, and drawn to the barn the following day. It is very rank and full of

William C. Beaty

JANUARY 6, 1828 - JULY 26, 1895

William “Bucky” Crawford Beaty was a farmer and public spirited citizen of Halton County. He was born on January 6, 1828 on a farm in Trafalgar, Halton. He was the third eldest of the thirteen children of John Beaty and Elizabeth Stewart. His father had emigrated to Upper Canada from Ireland in 1818, becoming one of the first settlers of the Trafalgar township. The family farm was built on land that was awarded to him by the crown.

Beaty struggled with his education in his early days, but persistence brought him success, and eventually in the fall of 1848 he passed an

Charles A. Zavitz

1863 - 1942

Little is known of Charles A. Zavitz’s early life save for his birth in Coldstream Ontario, 1863. By the 1880s however he had left Middlesex County for the Ontario Agricultural College in Guelph, Ontario. In 1887 the University of Toronto agreed to issue Bachelor of Science in Agriculture degrees to a select and competent class of O.A.C. diploma graduates. One of only five inaugural graduates Zavitz quickly secured employment at the school as the assistant superintendent of experiments.

During his first years Zavitz conducted valuable research and secured the construction

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News from our rich agriculture history

An Enthusiastic Crowd Inspects Millhills Comet

Jupe Pluvius

Treadle Scroll Saw

Haymaking at the Ontario Agricultural College

lives lived

William C. Beaty

Charles A. Zavitz