150 years ago
Thursday, October 24, 1872
JUST NOW the topic of the hour is potatoes. “Are your potatoes rotting?” is a neighbour’s first question on meeting, the interest in which seems to outweigh that all-absorbing subject – the weather. … And when they are gathered in, we may all quote that rare page on potatoes in Warner’s amusing book, My Summer in a Garden, … He says, “Digging potatoes is a pleasant, soothing occupation, but not poetical.”
IMPORTATIONS: [This merchant] has just landed from on board the “Prussian” from Liverpool, a large assortment of Tweeds, Diagonals, and other broad and narrow cloths.
125 years ago
October 28, 1897
ORMSTOWN: On Monday several schoolboys were playing “pie-crust,” rather a rough game, when Geo. St. Louis had his leg badly injured. He was carried over to Dr. Hall who found the injury was rather serious, requiring him to leave school for a time.
CHATEAUGUAY: A remarkable phenomenon has happened here. An apple tree in Miss MacFarlane’s garden, that had quite a number of apples on it this season, took somewhat of a blight about August, as if going to die, but strange to say, last month it came out in blossom. The apples were very small, but there were quite a lot of them.
100 years ago
October 26, 1922
ALLAN’S CORNERS: Quite a few plowmen from here have gone to plow at the Provincial Plowing Match at Saint-Eustache this week. We wish them a good share of the awards.
SAINTE-MARTINE: Last week we had the first snow of the season and it fell heavily for a short time. The land was covered with a few inches though the land was not frozen.
HEMMINGFORD: Several cases of whooping cough have developed among the pupils of the village school.
75 years ago
Wednesday, October 29, 1947
TRIP TO SCOTLAND: Gilbert McMillan addresses [the] community … City men are not allowed to play around with farming. Any farmer who does not do a good job will find his land taken by the government. Mr. McMillan regretted that the tithe-house, for hired help, is disappearing, and the men now live in villages. Children do not grow up doing farm chores, this eventually may do great harm.
TRIP TO BRITAIN: Gilbert McMillan gives informative talk… In regards to cropping, it is quite common to see a field that produces potatoes harvested in July, and the same field seeded so as to produce a crop for sheep grazing. 100-acre farms are not popular. It is the family farm of 50 acres that is common. Such farms can care for 15 head of cattle and a garden crop. After that it is the farms of 150 to 300 acres that afford employment to six men that are operated.
50 years ago
Wednesday, October 25, 1972
MALE CHAUVINISM IN THE MINK WORLD: There is a good chance that the next mink coat you see may have originated in the Howick area. … The most valuable sex in the mink business is the male. His pelt will bring an average of $30 on the market whereas the female averages about half that price.
YUMA GUMA club formed in Ormstown: Yuma Guma is the name of a new youth group being started by a pair of Ormstown youths this weekend. [The youths] said that the name is a combination of Latin and Indian words meaning “friendship.”
MORTGAGE IS BURNED: A service of interest took place at the Valleyfield Presbyterian Church on Sunday evening, October 15, when the congregation held a mortgage-burning ceremony.
