The idea of farming-as-therapy found acceptance in North America in the second half of the 19th century, reaching its zenith at the Asylum in the early 1870s. At that time there were a couple of hundred acres under cultivation or used as pasture, but this 'farm' ran the risk of not being taken seriously as the city's demands for land for its suburbs and factories escalated. Not long after the Province of Ontario secured 150 acres of the Reserve for the Asylum in 1870, it alienated some of these lands for penal and industrial purposes. The pace of alienation picked up in the 1880s. Fifty-eight acres on the east side of Dufferin Street were tendered for sale in 1886, closing in 1888, and a further 23 acres (16 acres net of streets) from the Queen Street domain the following year. By 1891 the Asylum retained only 27 acres of its original 50-acre site—the same area CAMH has today—plus barely 13 acres of adjacent arable lands.
Click the map to view a full size version.
Important Sale Of very Valuable Freehold Property, in the City of Toronto, by Tender, [Provincial Treasurer’s Dept.],1889. Printed.
Image courtesy Archives of Ontario
Advertisement in
The Globe, August 19, 1886
Next map:
1891 Map of the Lunatic Asylum Toronto
Back to:
The Lunatic Asylum
