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Leslie Hancock (right) being presented with an OLCA Honorary Life Member- ship from Donald McLean in 1965.


1972 ONA Board of Directors.


Horticultural Trades Association (LOHTA), the strength of the asso- ciation has always been as a result of the all the hard work carried out by its members through countless volunteer hours. The remarkable achievements of this forward thinking group of individuals were captured in a book celebrating the 25th anniversary of the association, the following excerpts highlight that dedication but also show how some outstanding indi- viduals and companies have played an important role in the history of Cana- dian horticulture Ontario Nursery Trades Association


The history of the nursery industry


in Ontario really begins in the late 1700s, when fruit growers discovered the favourable climate and soil of the Niagara Peninsula. By the early 1800s fruit growing was well established. Writing in the Canadian Nursery- man Centennial Yearbook of 1967, R. Warren Oliver tells of an early list of 120 members of the Fruit Grow- ers Association of Ontario that read like a social blue book of “the golden triangle formed by Niagara, to Toron- to and Windsor.” A number of prominent citizens


42 • Fall 2016


A group of OLCA members on a tour of Braeheid Sod Supply in Waterdown, Ont. (circa 1960).


became nurserymen, among them


Samual Taylor, who started a nursery at Fonthill in 1837. The firm under- went a couple of reorganizations, eventually building a nation-wide sales force with a head sales office in Toronto. In 1967, the year of Cana- da’s Centennial, Fonthill Nurseries was the oldest nursery still operat- ing in Canada. E.D. Smith (later Senator Smith) started Helderleigh Nurseries in Winona in 1882, and very rapidly developed it into a large operation with sales representatives across Canada. These two nurseries dominated the industry from 1890 to 1910, during which period many small nurseries were forced to close due to their competition and a slump in orchard planting. Sheridan Nurseries Ltd. started


near Toronto in 1913, then moved to an old farm near Clarkson, in time becoming the largest ornamental nursery in Canada. The McConnell Nursery Company Limited started at Port Burwell in 1912, and though it has undergone changes in ownership, remains there to this day. Within the following decade John Connon estab- lished a nursery, first at Stoney Creek and then at Waterdown; Downham’s


opened at Strathroy and Endean’s at Thornhill. These firms along with others, organized the Eastern Canada Nurserymen’s Association in 1922, and continued it until 1948, when the Canadian Association of Nurserymen was formed as the first truly national association. Ontario Landscape Contractors Association


In an article written or the Cana-


dian Nurserymen Centennial Year- book of 1967, Albert E. Brown, then vice-president of Sheridan Nurseries Limited, told about the early years of the landscape industry in Ontario. Having started with the company as a landscape foreman in 1915, he had seen many changes. For instance, up until the beginning of the First World War, the principal work of the land- scape contractor was in the develop- ment of large private estates, and often extended over one or more years. At that time there was very little equip- ment used, the work being all hand labour aided by horses and mules. The average rate per hour for labour was 30 cents, and a unit consisting of a driver, horse and wagon charged one dollar per hour. By 1928 the introduction of the small Caterpillar


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