Bonnie Boyne Farm, a picturesque landmark on the western outskirts of Alliston, has played a part in the lives of many generations of Alliston residents ever since the town began. It is located at the northeast corner of Highway 89 and the 7th Concession of Tosorontio Township.

My parents, Elmer and Margaret Braden bought the property from her parents, William and Annie Welch and William (Bill) Braden and his wife, Dorothy, (Blakely), bought it from them in March 1957. As of 2009, my brother Bill is still actively farming that wonderful, rich land.

The farm is more or less being surrounded by the growing town and, no doubt, the day is coming when an asphalt surface will put an end to the fine crops it produces. Apparently this is progress and food in the future will come from other places.

Elmer and Margaret Braden were good farmers and they passed their skills and knowledge onto their little boy, Billy, as soon as he was old enough to toddle along behind his daddy, eagerly taking in everything there was to learn about growing crops and raising livestock.

Elmer was particularly successful at raising hogs and the boy was eager to raise a few of his own. His interest in hogs began quite mysteriously one cold winter. In the middle of a howling February storm a strange thing happened. Nobody knew from where she came, but somehow a young, half starved pig struggled through the snowdrifts to seek the warm comfort of the Braden barn.

As poor and sickly as she was, the young farm lad claimed her and from that day forward he was a hog farmer, never realizing the level of success to which it would lead.

From this humble start, the young entrepreneur was able to purchase a top quality, purebred Yorkshire sow, which with careful, selective breeding, produced a litter suitable for the show ring. As a member of the South Simcoe 4-H Club he met his first success in the swine exhibit at the Beeton Fair.

Spurred on by this success, the young showman attended the Royal Winter Fair in Toronto where the best show stock from every province was to be seen. Having a good eye for quality, he purchased the ideal breeding stock to improve his own growing line of purebred Yorkshires.

Soon, he was ready to enter the top competition. Towing his Junior Yorkshire boar behind his 1951 Meteor in a tiny, green trailer, he braved the Toronto traffic to the Royal Winter Fair Exhibition grounds. Apparently it was pretty scary for the young country boy but it didn't affect his showmanship and to everyone's surprise, the kid from Alliston walked away with the ribbons of Junior Champion and Reserve Grand Champion. After that success, there was no stopping him.

The young breeder read everything about breeding champions. He tried crossing various bloodlines with little success until he tried line breeding - using the champions that he already had to intensify the type and style of animal. It was almost like cloning and his herd animals all possessed the same fine quality.

His breeding stock was in demand and over the years, Braden stock was purchased by breeders as far away as Cuba, Mexico, Spain and South America.

Over the years, Bill and Dorothy Braden added other swine breeds with the same success over 35 years of winter fairs until they finally won the greatest prize of all in 1989, the award for Premier Breeder and Exhibitor of all three breeds, Yorkshire, Hampshire and Landrace. The Yorkshire took the Supreme Champion ribbon. Bill's son Ken was a great showman too and that day, Alliston folk were proud to see the hometown father and son interviewed on the television news. It was a great achievement for Bonnie Boyne Farm.

The farm had great success with line breeding of Polled Hereford cattle using the same techniques. After Bill imported the best breeding stock from the U.S. the buyers came from far and wide to buy his top quality beef cattle. Mrs. Braden took most of the phone calls and became talented with that department and just as Ken had a gift for swine production, his twin brother, Keith excelled with cattle. For many years they maintained a fine Swiss Braunveih herd too, which were sold as far away as Mexico.

With the help of Dorothy and, daughter, Sharon and sons, Tom, Keith and Ken, Bill was able to maintain the Bonnie Boyne level of excellence while continuing with a full time position at Earl Rowe Park, which he had helped to build (see last week's edition of the Herald).

The farmer/park builder retired from the park in 1989 and after reaching the pinnacle of success showing hogs, he turned his hand to poultry. Dorothy and Bill had become interested in heritage poultry to take up the challenge of saving breeds that were close to extinction.

They started with turkeys and soon had nine different breeds. Pretty soon, the farm was cleaning up the top poultry prizes at the Royal Winter Fair too and by 2009, Bill's incubators were hatching out more than 1,000 birds per year. The list included many varieties, with everything from turkeys to waterfowl and peacocks. Buyers come from far and wide to buy them. A shipment of several breeds of turkeys has re-established the flocks of Great Britain, and hatching eggs are shipped all over Canada through the post office system.

Over the half century of showing at the Canadian National Exhibition and the Royal Winter Fair as well as countless other fall fairs, this Alliston farmer found time to be active on such boards as the Royal Winter Fair (chairman of Poultry Show and Swine Show), president of Ontario Swine Breeders Associationn, chairman of Canadian Livestock Records in Ottawa (where his picture hangs in the Agricultural Hall of Fame).

He judged many swine shows and was a life member of the Canadian Swine Breeders Association and the Canadian Hereford Association which presented him with his 50-year pin at the 2008 Royal Winter Fair, Hereford Show. What a record for a homegrown Alliston boy.

We sometimes forget what a blessing the good Lord gave us in the quantity of good, affordable food we have here in this fine land of milk and honey. The number of farm sons taking over the family farm is steadily decreasing as it becomes just too hard to make a living off the land.

Agriculture is very important and even Jesus spoke one of his most important parables about a farmer who went out to sow some seed, much of which was not able to grow because of various obstacles. Of course, at the time about 2,000 years ago, few of his listeners realized that he was talking about the sowing of an even more important kind of seed.

For more about the yesteryears of old Alliston see next Tuesday's edition of the Alliston Herald
Ralph Braden is publishing of a book of these stories entitled The Way We Were Then.