The Middlesex Agricultural Hall of Fame announced its inductees recently, and it stirred an old memory when I read that one of the men honoured was Dr. Burt Matthews.

The Middlesex Agricultural Hall of Fame announced its inductees recently, and it stirred an old memory when I read that one of the men honoured was Dr. Burt Matthews. I was surprised to read that he originally came from a farm near Kerwood, only about 20 minutes from where I now live.

I met Dr Matthews in 1986 when I was the unlikely editor-in-chief of the student newspaper at the University of Guelph, and he was the university president. In those days a student newspaper and the university administration were destined to not get along. Student newspapers were supposed to be against the establishment in all its forms, which never sat all that well with me but, it was what it was.

Matthews was known on campus to his students as Dr. Dirt, for his years of interest in soil science. I knew so little about him, not knowing of his education at Toronto, Missouri or........

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