Lawrence Cherry

This short film serves as a cautionary tale to farmers who recklessly cut down trees on their land. When prairie farmers engaged in this practice to facilitate plowing, they discovered that the trees had served as windbreaks protecting top soil from erosion. The Dominion Department of Agriculture's experimental station at Indian Head, Saskatchewan, cultivated acres of young trees for distribution to farmers.

This short documentary profiles a 1949 meeting of the International Federation of Agricultural Producers in Guelph, Ontario. The IFAP plans to help solve the dire problem of world hunger—a problem sharpened by the birth of 55,000 more human beings, arriving "for breakfast," each day. Delegates emphasize the plight of the many nations who face starvation while others have a surplus of food. The conference challenges the world to succeed at implementing a proposed plan for the fair distribution of food.

This 1950s' film looks at the measures to preserve water flow from the Rocky Mountains. With the steady falling of the water table, the exploitation of timber stands and the recession of glaciers, water conservation was an urgent concern of the Alberta and federal governments.

A farming community organizes to obtain hydro power under Manitoba's rural electrification plan. Energetic canvassing wins over those hesitant to share, for the good of all, the initial expense. The abundant return in comfort, convenience, efficiency and financial advantage is described in concluding sequences.

Contrasts traditional and modern village life, as changes occur with better transport and as country estates are sold off for housing.

This short film tells the heart-warming Christmas story of two Saskatchewan farm children and a pony named Pancho. There’s no real place for a horse on a fully mechanized wheat farm, but with will and heart they prove that one can be found.

This short film takes a look at Saskatchewan’s air ambulance service, organized and operated by experienced flyers who provide speedy hospitalization and treatment to the ill and injured. Within 15 minutes of receiving a desperate phone call for help from a remote area, a plane is on its way, guided to the patient with the help of landmarks such as a coal bin or a thin column of smoke on a northern lakeshore.

A film on soil conservation, showing problems facing farmers in different areas of Canada. Many scenes of soil eroded, gouged and leached out by water, and of soil blowing away, prove the ominous necessity of understanding and preserving the land if we are to continue to reap vital crops. The development of soil through the centuries, the particular conservation problems in eastern and western Canada, and how soil fertility may be restored and maintained are dealt with in detail.