Barclay farm in Upper Kintore

What’s better than a big ice-cream cone on a hot summer day? Here’s a bit about where it came from in the 1930’s.

“Jack Cooper was one of the men who collected cream from Victoria County farms in the thirties. It was done in the evenings and taken to Plaster Rock (by Mr. Cooper) early in the mornings for the eight o’clock train that would drop the cream at Amherst, N. S.

‘We collected in the evenings,’ said Mr. Cooper, ‘because there was no refrigeration in those days, that could be used. We did the Scotch Colony right after supper, then to South Tilley. We picked up cream from James Barclay, the Haffords, the DeMerchants, the Ogilvys, to mention a few. We also went out on the Birch Ridge road. At that time we were living in the old McNair homestead in upper Arthurette.’

‘The Brookfield Dairies received the cream at Amherst. They made delicious ice cream. Green’s, Plaster Rock, sold it for many years. A number of years later, when we had a 1939 Ford truck, we collected cream for the Carleton Co-operative, Florenceville. We were always paid by pound of butterfat, possibly forty to fifty cents.'”

Story source:  The Tobiquer, Number 7, 1986, page 15. Copy available at the Southern Victoria Historical Museum, Perth-Andover, New Brunswick.