Thistle Ha’

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Thistle Ha’ is a farm located in Pickering Township, Ontario, Canada. It was settled by Scottish immigrant John Miller in 1839.

John Miller (pictured) and his descendants had a tremendous influence on the purebred livestock industry in Canada and the United States in the 19th and early 20th centuries. The Millers were renowned innovators, importers, breeders, exhibitors, judges and promoters of Shorthorn cattle, Clydesdale horses, Berkshire and Yorkshire pigs, and Shropshire, Leicester and Cotswold sheep.

In recognition of the contributions of the Millers to Canadian agriculture, Thistle Ha’ farm was designated a National Historic Site of Canada in 1973 and a Province of Ontario Heritage Property in 1977. The honours awarded to individual family members including those related to the Millers by marriage for their contributions to the purebred livestock industry are too numerous to list here.

Thistle Ha’ is currently owned and operated by the fourth generation of Millers in Canada.

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The Potato Project. (Click to enlarge.)

Ms Norland led a group of Grade 3 pupils and Grade 7 mentors from Vimy Ridge Public School Earthkeepers to Thistle Ha’ again this year to plant potatoes on June 12. The Earthkeepers’ two rows of potatoes are on the right, and their row of sweet potatoes is in the middle. This activity’s history is explained in The Potato Project post below.

Click on the 2017 Potato Project link in the Pages column on the right to see progress photos of the Earthkeepers potato patch during the summer.

The Potato Project. (Click to embiggen.)

I had a conversation with a neighbour in April about the success that the naturalist and environmental movements had in making outdoor nature studies part of the local school program. This discussion prompted a question: why wasn’t the farming community providing a comparable learning experience? Most children, particularly those living in urban areas, know little about local sources of their food, or how it is grown. Students from some rural Ontario schools visit a farm or an agricultural fair for a day, but I am not aware of any pupil in this province having the same experience as a farmer going to a farm field, preparing the soil, planting seeds, and then watching the crop grow until they can harvest it for food.

I asked if any local school had interest in participating in a potato growing pilot project at Thistle Ha’. Potatoes are the most commonly grown vegetable in the world. Planting and harvesting fit well within the school calendar. A teacher at Vimy Ridge Public School in Ajax very enthusiastically agreed to participate in our Potato Project this year. So a couple of weeks ago, a school bus came to Thistle Ha’, loaded with 19 willing potato planters and two teachers from the Vimy Ridge Public School EarthKeepers Club. We planted potatoes the same way my ancestors did in hand-made furrows. The first lesson learned was concern about the weather. The soil was just workable due to wet weather prior to planting day. Rain threatened during planting, but except for a few drops, it remained fair, and we planted five rows, totaling over 100 potato seeds, in two hours.

During school summer vacation, I do the hard part, controlling weeds and potato plant eating pests. Provided that we have good summer weather and rains, there should be plenty of potatoes for the EarthKeepers to return to harvest in September.

Click on the 2014 Potato Project link in the Pages column on the right to see progress photos during the summer.

Until recently, “Atha” Willie Miller and the history of Lakeside Stock Farm in Storm Lake, Iowa were somewhat of a mystery in the annals of the Miller family. Why did he go to manage this particular farm in the northwestern Iowa frontier in the 1880s? Thanks to key research contributed by Wendy Cooke of St. Louis, Missouri, we now have a better understanding of the fascinating story of this farm by the lake.

Document sources: Storm Lake Pilot Tribune newspaper; Miller, Robert Anker, Highlights of Miller History; Sanders, Alvin, Shorthorn Cattle: A Series of Historical Sketches, Memoirs and Records of the Breed and Its Development in the United States and Canada. Chicago: Sanders Publishing Co., 1916.
Photos: provided by, and used with the permission of Wendy Cooke, St. Louis, Missouri.

After the American Civil War, Illinois Central Railroad built a line from Chicago to Sioux City, which is located on the Missouri River on the western border of the state of Iowa. Since the “last spike” was driven just west of Storm Lake in 1870, it is possible that land speculators purchased land on both sides of the railway, including land that was to become Lakeside Farm.

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