Recognizing a worthwhile gift | Farmtario

Among the many special events featured during Canada’s Outdoor Farm Show was a special award bestowed upon an incomparable individual. 

Reverend Ruth Butt, a United Church minister and former neighbour of the farm show site now known as Discovery Farm Woodstock, was presented with the Member of the Order of Ontario Agricultural College award Sept. 15. 

The award was originally announced in 2020 but its presentation was delayed until the 2022 edition of the show due to COVID-19 restrictions in the previous two years. 

Butt was recognized for her gift that created the Butt Family Memorial Soil Knowledge Mobilization Fund. The endowment supports the delivery and dissemination of research-based soil management knowledge and practices at the University of Guelph’s Woodstock Research Station at Discovery Farm Woodstock and those at the Ontario Agricultural College. 

According to her son John, Butt also donated to the Guelph Community Foundation to help with other soil health initiatives within the agricultural community. 

Growing up in the “Dust Bowl” days of the 1930s in Regina, Sask., Butt received several first-hand lessons on the importance of soil health from her parents, both of whom were teachers. They spoke frequently about the importance of good soil, so much that at the age of four or five, she looked at the garden beside the porch of her house and reasoned that “good soil” must mean “good to eat.”

“I picked up a handful and put some in my mouth,” she said during her presentation speech. “And you know how it must have tasted. I ran inside and indignantly complained to my mother that the soil wasn’t good at all as they had said. 

“My mother was very wise and comforted me on her knee and explained that the soil was for plants to eat and that people ate what grew out of the soil.”

Another lesson came following a windstorm that caught her and her brother on their way to school one day. The next day, her father took the family for a drive to see the damage, with soil drifts high enough to bury fence posts. 

“This was not like the good soil of our porch garden,” said Butt. “Dad explained that the good soil was blowing away because there were no trees and roots to hold it.”

She moved east to attend the University of Western Ontario (now Western University) in London, where she met her husband, Dr. Bill Butt. They settled in Woodstock, where he started a family medical practice while she became involved in charitable functions and was later ordained as a United Church minister. 

In 1963, they purchased their farm – the field that is now the north parking lot of the Outdoor Farm Show site. They share-cropped with local producer Don Hart, and even then, began with no-till practices. As John jokingly noted, his parents also started another cropping endeavour, raising seven sons and one daughter. 

After more than 54 years, Butt sold the farm and negotiated with Glacier Farm Media for the sale of the land. John said his mother wanted to do that in recognition of the value of the Outdoor Farm Show, the value of education and the link to the City of Woodstock. 

– Watch for more of Ralph Pearce’s content on this topic at Country Guide.