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.

Our Unpaid Farm Hands

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED | MAY 20, 1920 | THE FARMER'S ADVOCATE

Every farmer has a host of unpaid farm hands to whom he gives never even a thank you.Long before he gets out of bed, unless he gets up with the gray dawn, these hands are “on the job,” and if the farmer could compute the amount in dollars and cents that they save him in a year he would be amazed. The trouble is that he can’t see it with his two eyes, and so it never occurs to

This cartoon originally appeared in the May 13, 1944 issue of Canadian Countryman. It depicts a ram representing the “rush of spring work” chasing a farmer

This is a handheld cast-iron corn sheller in remarkable condition. Designed to shell corn kernels to produce feed for livestock, the corn sheller utilized a simple design

Submit Article Idea

How about Tariff for Chinese Famine Region?

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED | MARCH 5, 1921 | THE CANADIAN COUNTRYMAN

Of late, the papers have been full of most heart rendering appeals for aid to the poor-famine stricken people of China. It seems to me that our protectionist politicians ought to take this situation to heart. Why should not the food growers in China be protected against outside competition? Anyone who happens to have a supply of food in the drought stricken area can make a fortune out of it

John Harrington Ferguson

APRIL 18, 1851 - OCTOBER 16, 1931

John Harrington Ferguson was born on a farm in Chinguacousy township, Peel County (part of the modern municipality of Brampton) in 1851 to Samuel Ferguson and Ellen Harrington. John’s remarkable life would likely have been lost to history alongside countless other farmers in Victorian Canada were it not for his extremely detailed and valuable farm diary which he kept from 1869 to 1884. The diary, which survives to this day, provides considerable insight into the life of a bright young farmer during this era.

John Ferguson grew up on his father’s farm located on lot

Bertram Stewart

AUGUST 19, 1932 – FEBRUARY 12, 2018

Dedicated 4-H volunteer; dairy cattle consultant. Born Aug. 19, 1932; died Feb. 12, 2018, age 85, in Fergus, Ont.

In his 2010 Canadian Agricultural Hall of Fame citation, Bertram Stewart is described as a “pioneer in preparing and exhibiting dairy cattle.”

After learning of Stewart’s recent passing, Semex CEO Paul Larmer described Stewart in a statement as “an international icon.”

His early experiences showing cattle in Halton Region led to Stewart’s career as an adviser to some of the world’s best known dairy

News from our rich agriculture history

Our Unpaid Farm Hands

Rush of Spring Work

What is this advertisement for?

Handheld Corn Sheller

Guess what this artifact is?

How about Tariff for Chinese Famine Region?

lives lived

John Harrington Ferguson

Bertram Stewart