Ontario History — What Was Beaver Hay and a Stripper Cow? Lanark Era Classified Ads

CLIPPED FROM
The Lanark Era
Lanark, Ontario, Canada06 Dec 1899, Wed  •  Page 1

A “Stripper Cow” is an old cow well past her prime. A cow that has nearly stopped giving milk, so that it can be obtained from her only by stripping.

Steer
A castrated, male bovine.

CLIPPED FROM
The Lanark Era
Lanark, Ontario, Canada18 Aug 1915, Wed  •  Page 1

Beaver Hay is the rank grass that grows in beaver meadows.

Speaker: Yeah, some places they made them. Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: Just all round. Interviewer: Quite different. Um- Speaker: Brought them to a peak. Generally went and got a- a load of wild hay from the beaver meadow or somewhere. Interviewer: Yeah. Speaker: To put on the top because beaver hay turned the water much better than the other. Interviewer: Oh that’s interesting. I wonder why that was. Speaker: I don’t know. At that time, you-know, they, ah- they used to have these big beaver meadows that they had to cut with, ah, the scythe. You’ve seen them?

Speaker: Arnold Milford, Gender: Male, Age at interview: 93, Interview: 1977, Lanark County

Speaker: The loft was above and you put up a hand, you-know? Interviewer: Mm-hm. Speaker: You’d fork it up to the loft and somebody would stack it back and spread it back in the mow. Interviewer: Yes. This was wild hay. Speaker: Wild hay, yeah. Interviewer: Yes. Speaker: Beaver w– what they call beaver hay. Interviewer: Yes

Speaker: Alfred Starz, Gender: Male, Age at interview: 72, Interview: 1978, Lanark County

Broiler Chicken
A meat chicken raised to the weight of 2.65 kg or under.

Buck
Male goat.

Buck
Mature, male deer.

Buckling
A young, male goat (teenager).

Chevon
Meat that comes from adult goats.

Chick
The term for a baby chicken (male or female) until it is about three weeks of age

Cockerel
A young male chicken.

Colostrum
The first milk that any animal (including humans) produce after they give birth. This milk helps to pass along the mother’s immunity to disease to her offspring.

Roaster Chicken
A larger meat chicken raised to the weight of over 2.65 kg.

Sow
An adult female pig that has given birth.

Wattle
The reddish-pink flesh-like covering on the throat and neck of a turkey. It helps to release extra body heat.

Weaned
This term is used to describe the stage when animals are taken off their mother’s milk and fed solid foods, like grasses.

Wether
A neutered male sheep.

The Farmer is the Man

Eggs 10 Cents a dozen–Farmers Markets of Smiths Falls and Almonte 1880 and 1889

Dating A Farmer — It’s Not All Hearts And Cow Tails

Lanark Farm Life is Not so Bad- 1951

Once Upon a Time on the Farm

Farming Could be a Dangerous Business in Lanark County? Who Do You Know?

She Doesn’t Think My Tractor is Sexy–The Farmer’s Wife 1889

Remembering The Old Cow Bell — Don Crawford — The Buchanan Scrapbooks

From the Buchanan Scrapbook

If you let your cattle trespass within a quarter mile of mills, stores, taverns or churches on preaching days  in 1841 it would cost you a shilling– same with a cow without a bell.

Did you know each cow wore a different bell and that is how they knew whose was who..

Don’t Fear The Cow Bell — The Belled Vulture

Some Cold Hard Facts- First Tailor in Ramsay and a Cow Without a Bell

The Farmer is the Man

With files from The Keeper of the Scrapbooks — Christina ‘tina’  Camelon Buchanan — Thanks to Diane Juby— click here..

related reading

Eggs 10 Cents a dozen–Farmers Markets of Smiths Falls and Almonte 1880 and 1889

Dating A Farmer — It’s Not All Hearts And Cow Tails

Lanark Farm Life is Not so Bad- 1951

Once Upon a Time on the Farm

Farming Could be a Dangerous Business in Lanark County? Who Do You Know?

She Doesn’t Think My Tractor is Sexy–The Farmer’s Wife 1889

Lost in Lanark County? Turn the Radio Down

One day in 1983…..

A friend invited me to spend a weekend at his cottage and drew a map showing me how to get there. I left right after work last Friday. I found the map hard to follow and wound up lost on a country road. I stopped to ask a farmer for directions. He hadn’t heard of my friend but he said there were about a dozen cottages some five or six miles away. He told me how to get to them. I thought it was worth a try so I started off.

After I made several turns the road began to get bad. Then it got worse. I slithered through a couple of mud holes. I scraped the bottom of my car on a rock. Once I even had to stop to remove an old tree limb that had fallen and blocked the way. Suddenly I found myself driving right into a swamp. My car bogged down to the hubcaps in black mud. Getting out on my own was hopeless. I knew I would need help.

By now it was dusk and I didn’t want to set out walking through unfamiliar country. I spent an uncomfortable night in my automobile. Next morning I climbed a big pine tree to see if I could spot any cottages ahead. There was nothing but more trees and rocks.

I did discover one thing pine trees are covered with gooey pitch and if you climb one you can junk your clothes. I decided the only thing to do was walk out the way I came in. It took all morning to get back to the farmer’s house. No one was home. I was sticky and hungry and hot and there was no choice but to hoof it another mile to the next farm. Luckily the people were in and they had a telephone. The farmer was very helpful. He said I’d been on a road to an old, abandoned mica mine.

He said snowmobilers and hunters kept it fairly free of fallen timber but it hadn’t been used by automobiles for years. The farmer called a local garage and it sent a tow truck. We all rode back to the swamp. The tow truck couldn’t budge my car. The car was stuck too deeply. The driver said he would have to call another garage that had a big truck with a winch and four-wheel drive. The big truck had to come 30 miles and it didn’t arrive until after 5 p.m. The driver was sure he could pull me out easily and he was right.

But my total bill for both trucks was close to $50. I thought the first farmer, the one who misdirected me the day before, should pay part of my expense. After all, his bad advice had ruined my weekend and cost me a lot of money. I went to see him. He flatly refused to pay. He said I had made a turn he never told me to take. I’m sure I followed his directions exactly.

The farmer was probably right, that I misunderstood his directions. After all, he lived in the area and ought to know the difference between a mica mine and a lake. Anyway, there was plenty of warning that something had gone wrong. The fallen tree limb should have been an unmistakable clue. That wasn’t likely in midsummer on a road that leads to a dozen cottages 🙂 I guess I should have turned down the radio when I first realized I was lost LOL!

So why, then, are we wonky about the radio volume when it comes time to look for an upcoming exit sign or when we’re approaching an unfamiliar destination? It has to do with the demands on our ability to concentrate, and the limitations of the human brain.

Who Knew??

A Lost Letter — Reverend Canon Thomas Leech and Mary Empey Leech

LOST in Cedar Hill

The Lonely Grave of Barney Shiels of Cedar Hill

So Which Island did the River Drivers of Clayton get Marooned On?

Cattle Driving — Keeping the Beast on the Road

Back In the early 1860s Mr. Oliver Robert learned the gentle art of cattle buying. His father, Stanislaus Robert, was then a cattle drover, and operated chiefly in the country between Ottawa and Perth, via Richmond. Prospect, Franktown and Perth.

Later, in the 1870s, Mr. Robert operated in this same country on his own behalf. Those were the days when country roads, even the main roads, were things of ruts, corduroy, mud and clay. It was, however, also the day when meat was cheap and farmers took the word of drovers as to current values of beef and lambs. Very few farmers took newspapers, and then certainly did not have telephones, or radios to tell them about ruling prices. But, as Mr. Robert says, most drovers were pretty honest fellows and they and the farmers got on well together. As a matter of fact the drovers had to be honest, as if they were caught In a misrepresentation of prices they might as well leave the country.  Their connection would be gone.

Mr. Robert tells that when a drover went to sleep in a village hotel he never thought of locking the door or even putting a chair against it, even though he had hundreds of dollars in his pockets. Mr. Robert admits, however some drovers may have taken their trousers and put them under his pillow. Some did not even do that.

In the early 1870s when Mr. Oliver Robert started “droving” for himself, drovers paid the farmers from 3c to 4c per pound for stall fed cattle and $2.50 per lamb. Cattle were all “walked” to Ottawa. The usual practice In the case of the cattle stall was to walk them about 6 miles increasing the walk to 15 miles the next day. On the third day if they came from Perth they increased it even more on the third day.

Great postcard of a busy ByWard Market, circa 1909, looking toward Clarence St. Lost Ottawa

 The stall fed cattle was to walk them about six miles the first day,  increasing the walk to 15 miles the second day. On the third day (if they came from Perth) the walk was still further increased. On the other hand the cattle called ‘grassers” could be walked from Perth in two days. They were hardy, The stall fed cattle were bought from about the 15th of May to the 1st  of July and the “grassers” from July. The herds brought In on each trip generally numbered from 25 to 30 head.

In the 1870s the cattle yard where the drovers sold their cattle to butchers was in the Byward market. But the cattle were comingiIn such numbers that they took up too much room on the market and the farmers and others began to kick. About 1880 the cattle market was moved to Cathcart Square. It didn’t stay there many years, however, as the residents put up a kick about the noise and selling got back to Byward market.

While the cattle yard was at Cathcart Square a man named De Rise kept a hotel there and also had charge of the yard. As years went on the railways began to gridiron the country and they changed the whole system of cattle buying and handling and the old-time drover became a thing of the past.

Mr. Robert recalls that bringing a herd of 25 or 30 cattle to town was very often a troublesome Job. They often “dragged” on the road, and often broke away into unfenced bush land or jumped low fences Into passing farms. A drover had to have a great stock of patience, and often had a large vocabulary of swear words.

Mayor Coleman said Carleton Place was an important market town with Bridge Street sees a parade of farm vehicles and animals on their way to market. Cattle had a hard enough time moving down to the CPR station in those days–I can’t even imagine if that happened now.

Aug 8 1913

Fifteen head of cattle were killed on the C.P.R. Track about a mile south of Carleton Place after being struck by a train at an early hour this morning. A herd of 175 cattle had been driven into town by the Willow brothers yesterday and placed in the stock pen for shipment. Some time after midnight cattle broke through the fence ad proceeded to travel down different track routes.

A freight train traveling near the 10^th and 11 th concessions of Beckwith struck the largest herd and before the locomotive could slow down fifteen cattle were killed or so maimed they had to be destroyed. Two head were also killed on the line west and three east of the station making for a total of 20.

 

Clipped from

1. Ottawa Daily Citizen,
2. 15 Dec 1887, Thu,
3. Page 5

Information where you can buy all Linda Seccaspina’s books-You can also read Linda in The Townships Sun and theSherbrooke Record and and Screamin’ Mamas (USACome and visit the Lanark County Genealogical Society Facebook page– what’s there? Cool old photos–and lots of things interesting to read. Also check out The Tales of Carleton Place. Tales of Almonte and Arnprior Then and Now.

“Let the Cattle Pass” An Insulting Nuisance

Perils of the Cows of Carleton Place or Where’s the Beefalo?

Death of Local Farms in 2025? 1975 article

Clipped from The Ottawa Journal,  15 Apr 1975, Tue,  Page 63

I spend a good deal of the day researching newspaper archives and today I found this. In 19745, 42 years ago, they predicted the death of farms. Here is is 8 years away– what are your comments?

This old farm became a very large solar farm by next spring and these buildings no longer existed in 2013. 😦

Got a message this morning from Mary Hurdis.

The solar windowed item is next door now and this farm was almost directly across from the Thompsons, which was called Lloyd. The post office was operated by the Thompsons and their son Lloyd died and that’s where the name came from. The Lloyd Post Office. The last family to live at this house were the Giles family of six children..Elmer lives on Wolfgrove rd., Jerald C. P.,Marion, Edna,Leslie, also of CP, Doris.

Donna Sweeney Lowry

Hi Linda, I am questioning the pictures of an old farm house which have been identified as a Giles home situated across from Thompsons on the 12th line of Lanark. The pictures are with an article called Death of Farms seen by 2025, dated April 15, 1975. My mom, Lillian Giles (married Earl Sweeney from Marble Bluff) grew up on the 12th line across from Thompson’s. Her brother Milton, lived there until he and Aunt Jean(Lalonde) moved to Carleton Place with their daughter Marion. I do not believe the old house in the pictures is the house where Enoch and Annie (Moulton) Giles lived and raised their family. Before Enoch and Annie’s house was torn down, Gerald Tennant, who also lives on the 121th line and is an avid historian, snapped a picture of it and dropped it in our mailbox with a note telling me that my Mom’s childhood house was being demolished. Right now of course I can not put my hands on that darn pic. However from visiting Uncle Milton, I remember the old house being further out of the ground. You had to go up several steps to enter the house. And the laneway came right up past the southeast side of the house not the north west side. I will keep trying find pictures of the Giles house.

Come and visit the Lanark County Genealogical Society Facebook page– what’s there? Cool old photos–and lots of things interesting to read. Also check out The Tales of Carleton Place.

Information where you can buy all Linda Seccaspina’s books-You can also read Linda in The Townships Sun andScreamin’ Mamas (USA)

Alan and Betty Thompson Meadowside Farms

The Abandoned Farm House in Carleton Place — Disappearing Farms

The McNaughton Farm– Memories Ray Paquette

Looking for Information on the Native Fort Farm of Fred Sadler of Almonte

The Bryson Craig Farm in Appleton

Local News and Farming–More Letters from Appleton 1921-Amy and George Buchanan-Doug B. McCarten

Part 2 of “My Dad was an Old Thresherman”

Part 1 of “My Dad was an Old Thresherman”

 

Another episode in: They were Set Down in Dalhousie Township”– Effie Park Salkeld

It didn’t matter where you lived threshing was threshing. This story will be done in two parts and thank you to Beverly Salkeld from Winnpeg Manitoba whose family Grandmother Effie Edna Park Salkeld was born to Duncan and Mary Mcintosh Park in Lanark County in October of 1892 and died at Langenburg Hospitial in Saskatchewan April 19th Easter Sunday in 1965. She is buried in Gerald United Cemetery Saskatchewan

 

Dobbie Road in Lanark County

Photo- Linda Seccaspina Plowing Match on Mr. Dobson’s farm outside Smiths Falls

 

Photo- Linda Seccaspina Plowing Match on Mr. Dobson’s farm outside Smiths Falls

Photo- Linda Seccaspina Plowing Match on Mr. Dobson’s farm outside Smiths Falls

 

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Photo- Linda Seccaspina Plowing Match on Mr. Dobson’s farm outside Smiths Falls

 

 

Photo- Linda Seccaspina Plowing Match on Mr. Dobson’s farm outside Smiths Falls

 

Photo- Linda Seccaspina Plowing Match on Mr. Dobson’s farm outside Smiths Falls

 

 

Come and visit the Lanark County Genealogical Society Facebook page– what’s there? Cool old photos–and lots of things interesting to read.

Information where you can buy all Linda Seccaspina’s books-You can also read Linda in Hometown News and now in The Townships Sun

 

Related reading:

Part 1 of “My Dad was an Old Thresherman”

They were Set Down in Dalhousie Township”– Effie Park Salkeld

Eggs 10 Cents a dozen–Farmers Markets of Smiths Falls and Almonte 1880 and 1889

Lanark Farm Life is Not so Bad- 1951

Once Upon a Time on the Farm

Farming Could be a Dangerous Business in Lanark County? Who Do You Know?

She Doesn’t Think My Tractor is Sexy–The Farmer’s Wife 1889

 

Come and visit the Lanark County Genealogical Society Facebook page– what’s there? Cool old photos–and lots of things interesting to read.

Information where you can buy all Linda Seccaspina’s books-You can also read Linda in Hometown News and now in The Townships Sun

She Doesn’t Think My Tractor is Sexy–The Farmer’s Wife 1889

This was an anonymous letter sent to the Almonte Gazette in 1889

Dear Editor,

I am not only a minister’s wife, but it should also be read that I am a farmer’s wife. Sometimes, indeed, the terms are synonymous. There is the raising of children and chickens and making butter, cheese,  and bread. Then comes the omnipresent jobs of cutting, making and mending the clothes for a whole household. Not to speak of doing their washing and ironing, taking care of the pigs and the vegetable garden. Making winter applesauce, and picking my radishes and cucumbers, drying fruits and herbs are also on my list. There are no men involved in putting my twins through measles, whooping cough, mumps, scarlet fever and chicken pox. With a child on each hip I must also keep a river of hot grease on the kitchen table to float potatoes, carrots, onions and turnips for the family and farmhands.

However, your farmer is a round stalwart comfortable animal. There is nobody wailing at his pantaloons while he plows and makes a fence. He lies under the nearest tree and rests or sleeps when he can no longer work for his profit. The man comes into the house midday with the appetite of a hyena and the digestion of a rhinoceros and then goes forth again into the hay field till called home for supper.

Tintype photo from the collection of Vicki Racey

There stands his wife with the same head with which she rose in the morning still darting hither and thither for whatever is wanted– helping the hungry children or farmhands. After the supper is finished then comes the dish washing, milking and thoughts for tomorrow’s breakfast. Perhaps she sleeps with her eyes open for a baby or sick child and rises the next day to pursue the same unrelieved tread mill wearing ground the next day.

“Fanny Fervor”

Come and visit the Lanark County Genealogical Society Facebook page– what’s there? Cool old photos–and lots of things interesting to read.

Information where you can buy all Linda Seccaspina’s books-You can also read Linda in Hometown News and now in The Townships Sun

 

Perth Courier, December 25, 1868

 

Mrs. Abel Wright of North Elmsley has shown what can be done by a good housewife.  She had two cows from which she began to make butter about the 7^th of April last and on the 10^th of September she got a third cow and from the three cows Mr. Wright has obtained 390# of butter at the present date.  Mrs. Wright used large tin pans.  Surely she deserves praise and should be a good example to all farmers’ wives to do likewise.

 

 

stuart McIntosh

Linda’s Mailbag- Blasts from the Past

Thank you for sending in this picture!


Joan, Nancy and Jayne

Me and my sisters had our own farmers market. Con 10 3--

Con 10 ramsay. We sold garden produce at the end of our laneway to the farm. Hahaha. Just sharing in fun. Have a great day

Who Are These People?

These people are the heartland of Lanark county. All of them, except the dude in the green shirt. He be from the heartland of Okaland California and does not own a farm but he recently purchased a whippersnapper if that counts.  But all the rest of them have a story! Click on the link and read all about these people, and what they are bringing to the this year’s Carleton Place Farmer’s Market.

Opening May 14th!!

Welcome to the Carleton Place Farmers’ Market