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The series consists predominantly of fruit and vegetable crop reports and figures for District I, Vancouver Island and Gulf Islands, for the years 1926-1955. Other records included in this series relate to crop production and climate on Vancouver Island and the Gulf Islands. Also included in this series is a partial run of the annual Department of Agriculture publication “The Climate of British Columbia” (1924-1945). Some records also document the involvement of the Chinese community in the operation of greenhouses and market gardens.

Some of these records were created by Alan Littler, who served as District Horticulturalist for Vancouver Island and Gulf Islands (District I) between 1952-1971 (from 1971-1981 he served as Supervising Horticulturalist for the Coast). However, the majority of the files were created by Littler’s predecessor, E.H. White, who also served as District Horticulturalist for District I. The District Horticulturalist for Vancouver Island and Gulf Islands was responsible for monitoring and reporting on fruit and vegetable production, primarily on southern Vancouver Island.

Correspondence inward from the Deputy Minister of Agriculture requesting lower charges for soil analysis for members of farmers' institutes (series includes 1 page).

The series consists of the records of the Sumas Drainage, Dyking and Development District created between 1916 and 1975. The records conain general files, orders-in-council, financial statements, engineering reports, assessments, purchase agreements, minutes, history. In addition there are 73 photographs and maps.

Personal papers; subject files consisting of newspaper clippings, notes of interviews, drafts of articles, correspondence, and photographs relating to LeBourdais' interest in the history of the Cariboo district. Louis LeBourdais was born in Clinton in 1888 and died in Quesnel in 1947. He was the son of Adalbert LeBourdais, telegrapher and postmaster at Clinton and Eleanore LeBourdais. Louis LeBourdais also became a telegraph operator. He worked in Kootenay and Okanagan districts for the Canadian Pacific Railway and the Dominion Government Telegraph Service, before settling in Quesnel, apparently in the early years of World War I, as telegrapher for the Dominion Government Telegraph Service. In 1937 he became an insurance agent for the Confederation Life Association. He was elected to the provincial Legislature in 1937 as the liberal member for Cariboo district, and was re-elected in 1941 and 1945. LeBourdais was keenly interested in the history of the Cariboo district and the Central Interior in general. He wrote and sold articles on the past history of the region and on current economic trends to a number of magazines and newspapers, and was a correspondent for the Vancouver Daily Province. His topics included gold mining and the "back to the land" movement. The records were accumulated primarily in connection with LeBourdais' historical interests. Records include: papers and newspaper clippings of general interest, and subject files arranged alphabetically. The subject files consist of newspaper clippings, handwritten and typewritten drafts of articles, notes of interviews, correspondence and photographs. The bulk of the records date from the 1930s and are concerned with old timers, mining, particularly the resurgence of gold quartz mining, and the "back to the land" movement. Some subject files contain photographs. Printed material transferred to the North West Library Collection is identified in the finding aid. Approximately 450 black and white photographs, 75 black and white negatives, and nine glass negatives of various subjects, and approximately two hundred lantern slides of the Cariboo-Barkerville area were transferred to Visual Records accession, 198501-11. Mining maps of the Central Interior of British Columbia have been transferred to map registration numbers: 12916-12928. A list of maps is available at the end of the attached finding aid. Related records in MS-0361.

Scrap book containing newspaper clippings relating to agricultural issues and events.

The series consists of a photograph album created between 1919 and ca. 1922 by the Land Settlement Board. The album contains 166 black and white photographs which depict various agricultural development areas and drainage and dyking projects.

The first 10 photographs in the album are 8 x 10 prints taken by Leonard Frank which show dredging activities. The last 10 photographs in the album are duplicates of these. These photographs are numbered with Leonard Frank's own negative number scheme and have his embossed imprint.

The rest of the album is divided up into districts and projects and most have identifying captions. The districts and projects are as follows:
Bulkley Valley and Francois Lake - 42 photographs (including 1 loose photograph which may be unconnected)
Nechako Valley - 18 photographs
Prince George district - 13 photographs
Merville development area - 21 photographs
Creston development area - 13 photographs
Kootenay flats - 3 photographs
Fernie area - 2 photographs
Cranbrook Slough drainage project - 3 photographs (1 panorama made of 2 prints)
Sumas dyking project - 31 photographs

Some of the photographs have come away from the album and have further identification on the back.

This series consists of Provincial Horticulturist statistical returns from the Orchard Survey, 1920.

The series consists of records created by or relating to Nelson Seymour Lougheed. Included in this series are a scrapbook of news clippings (MS-2594.1), a certificate appointing Lougheed to Minister of Lands in October 1930, and two photographs. One photograph is a portrait signed by Lougheed and dated 1924. The second photograph is a group photograph in front of the Legislature buildings, and is assumed to be of Lougheed as Minister with his staff.

Nelson Seymour Lougheed (April 16, 1882 – June 6, 1944) was a Conservative politician in British Columbia and served as an MLA from 1928-1933.

This series consists of the Legislative Assembly Select Standing Committee on Agriculture proceedings of meetings held December 3 t0 10, 1925 to review a bill on the Sumas dyking. Extensive testimony was given by Premier John Oliver.

This series consists of 16 volumes of reports on irrigation districts in the Okanagan valley from1926 and 1927. Volumes include one summary report for the Okanagan and two copies each of detailed reports on the following irrigation districts: Black Mountain, Glenmore, Naramata, Peachland, South East Kelowna, Vernon, and Westbank. The reports include a history of the project, and statistical information. There is also an appendix to the Scotty Creek irrigation district report included in the series.

Volumes 2-8 are signed by Major J.C. Macdonald, Comptroller of Water Rights and are illustrated with b&w photographs and have maps. The duplicate volumes 9-15 contain holographic alterations and are initialed by J.W. Clark, Inspector, Water Rights Branch.

The series consists of the records created by the Deputy Minister of Agriculture, mostly between 1955 and 1971 with some earlier dated material found in select files. The Deputy Minister between 1955 and 1963 was William MacGillivray and from 1963-1971, it was A.H. Turner.

The files include correspondence to and from the Deputy Minister, reports and articles, memoranda, administrative records and subject files all to do with the daily operations of the office and its functions.

Responsibilities of the office included: apiary activities, cattle brands, beef and dairy cattle, fruits and vegetables, poultry, sheep, horticulture, field crops, Milk Board, soil and plant and animal disease.

This series consists of the records of the Commission to Enquire Into the Economic Conditions in the Several Areas under Irrigation Projects from 1927. The enquiry examined the following areas: Glenmore Irrigation District, Grand Forks I.D., Heffley Creek I.D., Naramata I.D., Peachland I.D., Rutland I.D., Scotty Creek Development District, South East Kelowna I.D., Vernon I.D., West Summerland, Westbank I.D., and Winfield. The records include 4 volumes of submissions to the commission, two copies of the Commission's final report, and 1 volume of exhibits.

The series consists of reports acquired by the Deputy Minister of the British Columbia Department of Agriculture between 1927 and 1972. There are both published and draft reports which cover all aspects of agricultural issues including dairy farming, soil erosion, land reclamation, fruit farming, marketing, exports and irrigation. Many of the reports are illustrated with photographs, maps, graphs and other technical material.

The reports were written by the Provincial Department of Agriculture and other Provincial Departments such as Lands, Forests and the Water Rights Branch. Some of the reports are from the Federal Department of Agriculture or other agents. The reports are arranged numerically by numbers applied by the Deputy Minister's office although the attached numbers have come off some of the reports and there are gaps in the series.

The series consists of committee files created by the Industry Organizations Development Branch of the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Fisheries, and its predecessor body Financial Development Programs Branch, from 1984 to 1998. The files include reports, correspondence, agendas, minutes and other material relating to various economic development committees including: Farmers Institute Advisory Board; Potato Industry Research and Development Advisory Committee; Raspberry Industry Development Trust Fund Advisory Committee; Green Plan Management Committee and the Prairie Farm Rehabilitation Administration.
The series also includes administrative records related to some of the programs including executive correspondence referrals, inquiries, communication plan and audit files. In addition there are four files relating to the dissolution of a Farmers Institute and three files relating to the dissolution of Women's Institutes, 1929-1997.

This series consists of records of the Royal Commission Investigating the Fruit Industry (and interrelated conditions) of the Districts Territorially Known as the Okanagan, Kootenay, and Kettle River of the Province of British Columbia, 1929-1930. Commission records consist of correspondence and the report.

Copy of a memorandum (undated) to P.D. Walker, Deputy Provincial Secretary, from Rodney DeLisle, District Agriculturalist (Columbia-Kootenay), describing his visit to Colony Farm at the Provincial Mental Hospital (Essondale), Alexandra Ranch at Tranquille Sanatorium and the Provincial Industrial School for Boys at Port Coquitlam in 1930.

Administrative records of Fairbridge Farm School, a residential training centre for underprivileged British children located near Duncan, B.C. Includes correspondence, reports, newsletters and case files of Fairbridgians (student trainees), 1935-1949. Also includes operational records re: agricultural work on the farm site and records re: English immigrant families who leased farm cottages between 1950 and 1960.

The Fairbridge Farm School was part of a philanthropic scheme aimed at strengthening the British Empire and improving the condition of underprivileged British children. The scheme was conceived by Kingsley Ogilvie Fairbridge (l885-l924), a South African-born reformer who was raised in southern Rhodesia. On first visiting England in 1902 Fairbridge was struck by the over-crowding and poverty in large industrial cities; he was also appalled by the condition of working-class children who lived in unhealthy, unstable homes in city slums. In 1909, having returned to England as a Rhodes scholar, he outlined his plans for saving these children to a group of fellow students at the Oxford University Colonial Club. Fairbridge's plan was to resettle selected British children in the overseas dominions. There, in a rural environment, children would live together in cottages within a village-like setting. Girls would receive training in domestic pursuits, while boys would be trained in manual arts and agriculture. Vocational training was to be supplemented with moral guidance and leavened with recreational pursuits in such a way that the young emigrants would be able to take their places as productive citizens in the host communities. Fairbridge's proposal led to the founding of the "Society for the Furtherance of Child Emigration to the Colonies," afterwards incorporated as the Child Emigration Society [CES]. The society raised £2,000 and in 1913 the first "farm school" was opened in Western Australia. Other training farms (which were supported by grants from the British and Australian governments and by private donations) were later established in the states of New South Wales, Victoria, and Tasmania.

Kingsley Fairbridge had hoped originally to open a farm school in Canada. Ten years after his death - when the CES was reconstituted as Fairbridge Farm Schools (Inc.) - his wish was realized. Encouraged by Canadian enthusiasts, an appeal was launched to help bring the farm school concept to the Dominion. The appeal was led by the Prince of Wales and sufficient funds were raised to purchase a 1,100 acre site at Cowichan Station, near Duncan, on Vancouver Island. The new facility - officially named The Prince of Wales Fairbridge Farm School - opened in 1935. The first principal of the farm school was Major F. Trew who held the position from April 1935 to May 1936. Trew's successor was Colonel H.T. Logan, a contemporary of Kingsley Fairbridge at Oxford and a former professor of Classics at the University of British Columbia. Logan resigned in June 1945 to join the staff of the Fairbridge Society headquarters in London. He was succeeded as principal of the Prince of Wales farm school by Mr. W.J. Garnett (July 1945 - January 1949) and Major A.H. Plows (February 1949 - January 1951.) The Fairbridge Farm School consisted of fourteen cottages, each capable of accommodating a dozen children and a resident "cottage mother". Other buildings included the principal's residence, staff quarters, a chapel, a hospital, and a school. These facilities - which were adjacent to the school's large dairy farm - were maintained with the help of subscriptions from England and a grant from the British Columbia government. Funds were also raised throughout the province and in 1938 Captain J.C. Dun-Waters donated his 2,000 acre orchard near Vernon to the Fairbridge Society. Named the Fintry Fairbridge Training Farm, the Okanagan property was run in conjunction with the main centre on Vancouver Island.

Over three hundred children passed through Fairbridge Farm School during its first ten years of operation. But after the Second World War a number of problems arose which placed the future of the school in doubt. Among these was the unfavourable dollar/sterling exchange rate, the post-war monetary controls which restricted funds from Britain, and the provincial government's decision to discontinue its operating grant. The whole concept of institutionalized child care was also being questioned in many quarters and after the passing of the 1948 Child Welfare Act in Britain [which made local authorities responsible for child care] there was no longer a need for juvenile resettlement on a large scale. Accordingly, the Fairbridge Society reluctantly decided to wind up its operations in British Columbia. The Fintry estate was sold and in the early 1950s the last of the Fairbridge "trainees" left the Prince of Wales Farm School. For the next ten years the Cowichan Station site was managed on behalf of the Fairbridge Society by the Canada Colonization Association. A subsidiary of the Canadian Pacific Railway, the association leased the farm school cottages to newly-arrived English immigrant families. The arrangement was eventually discontinued and in 1975 the farm school was sold to a Victoria real estate firm. The property is now the site of a residential housing development.

This series consists of the records of the Inter-Departmental Advisory Committee on Agriculture Land Settlement, 1942-1943. Records include correspondence, memoranda and reports of the Chairman of the Land Settlement Board, William Turnbull, relating to his activities as chairman of the Interdepartmental Advisory Committee on Agriculture and Land Settlement established by the Post-War Rehabilitation Council. The Council had the task of planning civil employment and vocational training of veterans of World War II.

Statistical registers relating to milk prices and milk production.

This series consists of Agriculture Development and Extension Branch correspondence, memoranda and reports, 1943-1952.

This series contains records of emergency aid and damage assistance pertaining to the Fraser River flood of May 1948, pursuant to the Flood Relief Act, 1948. The records consist of subject correspondence files, correspondence with local rehabilitation committees, appraisals of property damage reviewed by the Authority, and accounts of damage to stock, feed, seed, and crops.

Charge register relating to the "Farmers' Land Clearing Assistance Act"

Correspondence arranged in subject files, mainly 1962-1964.

Constitution and by-laws; minutes and resolutions of meetings and BCFA conventions; correspondence pertaining to BCFA organization, agricultural matters, the Pacific National Exhibition, freight rates, Fraser Valley floods, and taxes; papers and correspondence concerning expropriation; briefs submitted by individuals and organizations to the Royal Commission on Expropriation (1961); BCF.A. briefs and submissions to federal and provincial governments; reports and convention material of some farm product specialty organizations.

The British Columbia Federation of Agriculture (BCFA) was established in 1936 as the British Columbia Chamber of Agriculture, assuming its present name in 1941. The federation represented local agricultural associations at a provincial level and liaised with public and national organizations on agricultural matters.

The records include the British Columbia Federation of Agriculture's constitution and by-laws, minutes and resolutions, correspondence, and briefs and submissions to the Royal Commission on Expropriation Laws and Procedures (the Clyne Commission). Subjects include the Pacific National Exhibition, freight rates, the Fraser Valley floods, and the expropriation of farmland.

Related records may be found in MS-1545 and MS-0669.

Report entitled "Cattle Ranching in British Columbia, 1958-1959", by B.K. Acton and E.D. Woodward, a preliminary report prepared for the Economics Division of the Canadian Department of Agriculture.

The series consists of 64 film reels of stories or items (including out-takes from items) dealing with various aspects of agriculture in BC, produced for television broadcast by the Horticultural Branch of the B.C. Dept. of Agriculture, between 1959 and 1973. Topics include: cattle, chinchilla raising, diseases of plants, fruit-growing, fruit tree care, grain growing, insects, irrigation, mushroom growing, poultry raising, ranching, vegetable planting and harvesting, etc. The series was originally broadcast by CHBC-TV Kelowna, and later by several other stations as well.

Manuscript biography of Geoffrey Murray Downton comprising Part I, birth to 1915 (author's narrative interposed with lengthy extracts from his diaries and letters); and Part III, reminiscences by Downton of period, 1918-1960. Essay describing Downton's life in Lillooet.

This series consists of Secretary of Exhibitions and Fall Fairs correspondence and annual reports, 1961-1963.

Report entitled "Farming in the Rocky Mountain Trench of British Columbia in 1955" by D.C. Crossfield, a report for the Economics Division of the Canadian Department of Agriculture, January 1962.

Series consists of public information photographs from the Dept. of Agriculture and its successors. The photos depict a wide range of agricultural activity in the province and were used by the ministry to promote the industry and the work of the department. The photographs were originally brought together by the ministry’s Kelowna office and document many industries including farming and food processing. There are files containing images of fruit, vegetable, poultry, dairy, honey and wine production. There are also a large number of files relating to the Agricultural and Rural Development Subsidiary Agreement (ARDSA) which document farming and food processing as well as other areas such as irrigation and fencing.

The files have been arranged into three main groupings: ARDSA images, slide presentations, and general images. The records consist primarily of 35 mm slides although there is also one audiotape and one file that contains contact prints and negatives. Some files also contain the script that was used for presentations.
The records were selectively retained by the BC Government Records Management Branch in accordance with the Special Media records schedule (102905).

The following ministries were responsible for the creation of these records:
Department of Agriculture (1963-1976)
Ministry of Agriculture (1976-1980)
Ministry of Agriculture and Food (1980-1984)