Back to Tocal had all the hallmarks of an agricultural college celebration, from guest speakers to hearty meals and tales beside the bonfire.

Meanwhile, celebrations were in full swing at the old Tocal Homestead for Peek into the Past.

A few hundred people turned out to watch the Redcoats fire muskets, traction engines sort chaff and smell scones baking over coals. 

The celebrations were quite separate, but shared that crucial link – those fertile Tocal fields.

Tocal’s first agricultural college principal, the reverend Dr Colin Ford, helped plant a tree to mark the half century milestone.

“I was only thinking as we drove up here [Sunday] morning about my first glimpse of this site and it was just grass here on the ridge,” he said.

“It’s a credit to everyone that has played some part in the life of this place.”

About 600 people, many of them past students, came back through the gates for the weekend to the college symbolised by its towering spire.

The chapel, lecture facilities and mammoth hall are cele­brated architecturally now, but Dr Ford said people shouldn’t ­forget those early days.

“One of the things I stress when I talk about Tocal is the quality of those first 15 students,” he said.

“We were still building, but those first students adjusted to the task at hand admirably.”

The tree was symbolically planted in what has served as a grassed thoroughfare for students over the years as the moved between lectures, meals and their accommodations.