Background
He was born in Onslow, Nova Scotia and educated there.
He was born in Onslow, Nova Scotia and educated there.
He represented Colchester County in the Nova Scotia House of Assembly from 1878 to 1886 as a Liberal-Conservative member. He was lieutenant-colonel in the militia, commanding a Highlanders battalion from Pictou, Hampshire and Colchester. Blair was an arent promoter of modern farming, and was deeply involved in agricultural reform efforts in Nova Scotia.
Most substantively, Blair was the first supervisor of the federally funded Experimental Farm in Nappan, Nova Scotia, heading it from its creation in 1887 until his retirement in 1896.
He died in 1919.
He was president of the Onslow Agricultural Society and chairman of the Agricultural Exhibition Committee, was a prominent member of the Nova Scotia Farmers" Association from its inception in 1895 until his death, and participated in lobbying the provincial government for the creation of a provincial School of Agriculture in 1885 (which became the Nova Scotia Agricultural College in 1905).