Complex sentence: The local suffragist farmer Antonie Viljoen is recorded as the first purchaser of apple trees in the area, though it was in fact his farm workers who first successfully farmed them on their own plots, through their own private initiative.
Split into simpler sentences: The local suffragist farmer Antonie Viljoen is recorded as the first purchaser of apple trees in the area. However it was in fact his farm workers who first successfully farmed them, on their own plots and through their own private initiative.