William Henry Day 1870-1938

William Henry Day 1870-1938. . , OAC Physics Department Instructor, 1903-1906 , Head, Physics Department, 1906-1919, William Day was born in Fenelon Falls, Ontario in 1870. He taught school for six years, then entered the Unversity of Toronto and graduated as a Gold Medalist in physics and mathematics in 1903., That year, he joined the Physics Department of OAC, then became Head of the Physics Department in 1906. Day took over from J. B. Reynolds, who had initiated research in soil testing, farm drainage and lightning rods. Building on Reynolds' work, Day reported that of every $1,000 of lightning damage, rods could save $999, a finding of great importance to the farming community., Day also joined Reynolds' call for extensive soil testing, which would eventually become standard procedure in the province. He was also responsible for extensive farm drainage initiatives in Ontario and encouraged the Ministry of Agriculture to provide loans for land drainage, work supported by the Physics Department., So convinced was Day of the benefits of drainage that he involved the Physics Department in experimenting and producing 6,000 tiles a year by 1910. In 1912. Physics and three other departments acquired a ditching machine, which enabled experiments on drained and undrained test plots. By 1918, 142,000 acres of land had been tiled and drained under the auspices of Physics., During the First World War, college and military authorities formed a Canadian Officers Training Corps on campus. Day was the commanding officer of the 256 men who had enrolled by 1915., After the war, Day formed a syndicate to acquire options on the Holland Marsh, north of Toronto, convinced that if properly drained it could be the best market garden land in Ontario. Eventually the area's municipalities agreed to a drainage scheme and Day was credited with establishing today's rich Holland Marsh. The first crops were harvested in 1927., In 1919 Day retired from OAC to take a managerial position with a lightning rod company and became a land owner in the Holland Marsh., Day Hall, buiit In 1895, was originally used for Animal Husbandry and later as the Physics Annex., Day Hall 1895 , On the occasion of the 1l0th anniversary of the Department of Physics (1895-2005) ,