News from our rich agriculture history

James Mills was born in 1840 near Bond head in the county of Simcoe to parents of Irish descent. He was the eldest of ten children. Mills was a figure who was committed to the improvement of agricultural education in Ontario, and his name is one that will forever be associated with the Ontario Agricultural College, for which he served as president and instituted a number of important reforms.

Mills contribution to rural Ontario began at a young age. Although he lost his right arm in a farming accident when he was a young adult and was restricted from a further role in farm

Born in 1901 in Huron County, Margaret Strang was the third woman to graduate from the University of Western Ontario with a degree in medicine in 1929. She was the only female to graduate from the university that year.

She completed her internship at St. Joseph’s Hospital in Hamilton, Ontario. Upon collecting her degree Dr. Strang moved to Dixonville, Alberta to set up her medical practice. She was the only doctor in the area and in her own words she could travel as far as she liked in any direction and encounter no other doctors to compete with. She traveled an area of