Cantley's 1889 Articles in The Echo of Cantley
Cantley 1889’s volunteers have written more than 150 monthly articles of local historical interest for publication in The Echo of Cantley, a non-profit bilingual organization that produces Cantley's only community newspaper.
The following article is reprinted here with permission from in The Echo of Cantley, Volume 36 no 9, April 2025.
Hubert McClelland’s Pastures
Hubert McClelland
Cantley’s picturesque farmlands are part of Cantley’s rural identity, reminders of Cantley’s 195-year-old farming culture. With good farm management, today’s pastures can contribute significantly to the health of our environment, as Hubert explains ...
In 1908, my great-grandmother, Elizabeth Kerr McClelland, purchased 100 acres of the MacAlindon Farm - about 25 acres of tillable soil, a small kettle lake and rough pasture and bush. It included a massive 28-acre gravel hill that became a gravel pit after Jean Paul Chenier bought it in 1954. The pit was extracted to extinction by 1974 and is now the site of Cantley’s parc des Glaciations. I now own 50 acres of the remaining land: five acres of Hydro Québec servitude scrubland, 20 acres of bush, muck soil, wetland and Blackburn Creek bed and 25 acres of pasture along Chemin St. Andrew Road.
I grazed dairy cattle until 2023. I now graze about 15 beef heifers from May to October to maintain permanent forages for my cattle without having to plow. Over the past 50 years, small portions were plowed for reseeding good legume and grass mixtures for the pasturing cattle. My hydroelectricity service provides pumped water to the pasture so the cattle don’t have to access the Blackburn Creek to drink, and I can electrify the fence to control movement of cattle in the pasture. I move my cattle to either side of the Blackburn Creek by crossing over its culvert.
I practice regenerative agriculture with controlled grazing. This avoids costs of fertilizer purchases and other inputs to maintain a sustainable grassland and produce good beef and milk. The grazing animal returns 90 to 95% of the nutrients it devours in the forages. Most of the nitrogen, phosphorus, and potassium that are in the hay and grass it consumes, are returned in their manure and urine deposited on the soil. The only inputs I use are salt and minerals for the cattle-fed mineral feeder. Sometimes I use chemical fly control or ear tags impregnated with pesticide. In 2024, I used no pesticides or parasite control for worms.
Basic Principles of Good, Controlled Grazing
- The grazing period should be as short as possible, from one day or less than a few hours.
- The animal should be allowed to take not more than 50% of the plant so a lot of its leaf surface remains to capture the sunlight needed to grow more grass.
- The period of regrowth after the brief grazing should be as long as necessary (20 to 60 days is frequent) to allow the grass to restore its growth and its root reserves to sustain another grazing.
- Herbivores should graze in the pasture before maturing plants produce a seed head. In most cases, the pasture should be harvested for hay just before “heading” begins.
Solving “The Carbon Issue” by Growing Soil
According to western farmer, Steven Kenyon (www.greenerpasturesranching.com),
“The Carbon Issue we face is a math equation. In order to get to carbon neutral, we have to sequester (capture) as much carbon as we emit. The problem with society right now that everyone is only looking to reduce emissions...for single point measurements that we can scientifically prove and then market how good we are. If we only look at reducing emissions, we will never get to carbon neutral. It is simple math: 1-1= 0. The advantage we have in agriculture is we can sequester carbon. The sad part is that most farms are not...by emitting more than they sequester. The goal of a good well-managed grazing farm...is to grow soil. We do this by using livestock to manage perennial polyculture (forages). The plants along with the underground employees (earthworms, dung beetles, ants, bacteria, fungi) help us sequester carbon.”
If we measure both before and after a period of intensive grazing, we will know how much the soil’s organic matter increases, carbon is stored, and soil will grow. Depleted soils having only 2% to 3% organic matter can be improved to 6% or more over time. This will also improve the soil’s water-holding capacity thereby lowering the negative effects of drought. Expert farmers in western Canadian are challenging the adage, “It takes 100 years to grow an inch of soil”. Farmers here can do the same.
