It was not so long ago that parts of urban and suburban Toronto were used for agricultural purposes. When St. Augustine's Seminary opened in 1913 on the Scarborough Bluffs, the seminarians and faculty lived off the land:
"[T]he seminary grounds also included a farm with cows, pigs, and hens, which in the first three decades served as the principal source of the Seminary's food supply. An apple orchard stood north of the original Seminary building, and in the earliest years a vineyard was cultivated in order to provide Mass wine." *
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| St. Augustine's Seminary Photograph Collection, PH26S/83P The orchard was located just north of the seminary building (ca.1920), where Blessed Cardinal Newman Catholic High School now stands. |
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| St. Augustine's Seminary Photograph Collection The farm on the seminary grounds, including vineyards (right) for producing mass wine, ca. 1920. |
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| St. Augustine's Seminary Photograph Collection Loading the hay wagon on the seminary farm. |
Celebrate the harvest season with a visit to St. Peter's Parish Fall Fair in Toronto this weekend (Saturday, October 3 - Sunday, October 4).
*Booth, Karen Marshall, ed. The people cry - "Send us priests": The first seventy-five years of St. Augustine's Seminary of Toronto, 1913-1988 (Toronto: Metro Press, 1988), vol. 1, p.11.
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