News from our rich agriculture history

John G. Barron was one of Manitoba’s earliest and most celebrated cattle breeders in the province’s history. Barron’s success in breeding Shorthorn cattle won him a great number of medals at fairs and livestock shows across North America. The fruits of John’s success extended beyond his own immediate family to his adopted community of Carberry, Manitoba. In 1920 the editor of the local paper claimed that John Barron did more “than anyone else to put Carberry on the map of Canada.”

John Gerrie Barron was born in Elora, Upper Canada (modern-day

Farmer and innovator. Born Dec. 1, 1933; died June 28, 2017 in London, Ont., age 83.

Bill Heeman worked literally until the day he died at the London-area retail greenhouse operation he and his wife, Susan, established 54 years ago.

The couple emigrated from Holland in the late 1950s. While Bill was a mechanic by trade, Susan was raised in a family greenhouse business and urged her husband to enter this field. In 1963, the couple built a 10,000-square-foot (929-square-metre) greenhouse for wholesale tomatoes near a strawberry patch.

The family has