Item MS-14-7, Box 5, Folder 7, Item 1 - Correspondence from J.S. Bubar (head of the Nova Scotia Agricultural College's Department of Plant Science) to Dr. Don MacNeil (Nova Scotia Institute of Agrologists)

John Bubar—known to his students as "Johnny Plant"—was the first head of the Nova Scotia Agricultural College's Plant Science Department. Born on 13 September 1929 in Hartland, New Brunswick, he was the first of three sons of Charles Humphrey Bubar and Ida Margaret Pratt. He grew up on farms near Hartland alongside his Pratt uncles, who were successful agriculturalists.

He graduated from Hartland High School in 1946 and spent one year in Normal College and another year teaching in a one-room school. He left teaching to attend Nova Scotia Agricultural College and McGill University's Macdonald College, earning a BSc in Agriculture in 1952. Two years later he completed his MSc at Penn State University, then returned to Macdonald College, where he earned his PhD. His doctoral research led to the development of the "Leo" Birdsfoot Trefoil, the first named cultivar of the forage crop species.

Bubar taught at Macdonald College for a decade before returning again to NSAC in 1967, where he taught for twenty years and carried out agronomy field trials both on and off campus. In 2010 a scholarship for top students from New Brunswick was established in his name.

John Bubar died on 1 April 2014 in Truro, Nova Scotia.