The Farms of Historic New England

Cultivating Agricultural Heritage and Sustainability

by DIANE VIERA Chief Operating Officer

The farms of Historic New England are places where agriculture and community come together in a celebration of the farming traditions of the past and the sustainable, innovative practices of today.

In Southern Rhode Island

Connecting Community and Fresh Food

Casey Farm, overlooking Narragansett Bay in Saunderstown, is a 300-acre working farm that welcomes more than 50,000 people each year. The farm began offering the first USDA-certified organic Community Supported Agriculture (CSA) shares in Rhode Island in 1994. It is a local food source for CSA members and for the public through the popular weekly Casey Farm Market that connects families with high-quality food from Casey Farm and other partner producers across Rhode Island. Casey Farm is a place where neighbors know their farmers. Pick-your-own crops draw people into the fields to see how their food is grown. Additionally, the farm produces honey from beehives on site that are supported by pollinator gardens and acres of chemical-free and wild cultivated plants. Fresh eggs are gathered from the farm’s heritage breed chickens. Workshops are offered on topics ranging from organic gardening to preserving the harvest, or people are welcome to experience the land on their own. Each year thousands of children learn where their food comes from at hands-on summer camps and school programs such as Project CHICK, which invites students from across the state to follow Casey Farm eggs from the incubators in their classrooms to a return to the farm as chicks. Learn more online at Casey.Farm.

Supporting Heritage Breeds and Sustainable Agriculture

Watson Farm is located across the bay from Casey Farm, on 265 acres in Jamestown on Conanicut Island. The farm continues its long tradition of animal husbandry by raising 100 percent grass-fed lamb and beef for local markets. This includes heritage breed Red Devon cattle, known for excellent meat and milk. English colonists in the Plymouth colony prized the breed for not only meat and milk, but also as work animals. Red Devons thrive on New England grass pastures, making Watson Farm the ideal grazing location. The farmers’ intensely managed system of rotational grazing and methods of soil fertility improve the pastures and the health of the livestock. Wind is harnessed for the water pump that provides much of the drinking water for the livestock. This year, a sustainable stormwater drainage system is being installed to further protect the farmyard.

Thomas Carr Watson’s gift of Watson Farm to Historic New England in 1979 is credited as the beginning of the farmland preservation ethic on Conanicut Island. Through the collaborative efforts of local farmers, there are more than 1,200 contiguous acres of preserved agricultural land with an additional 200 acres protected elsewhere on the island. Learn more at historicnewengland.org/ property/watson-farm/.

On the Massachusetts North Shore Fostering Farm Animals in Need

The 230-acre Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm in Newbury is a thriving community gathering spot that plays a vital role in saving at-risk farm animals through an innovative partnership with the Massachusetts Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. For nearly two decades the farm has been home to rescued sheep, goats, chickens, turkeys, horses, donkeys, pigs, and barn cats in need of open space and dedicated caregivers. This foster farm activity is complemented by local commercial farmers who for decades have leased fields to grow produce with a commitment to sustainable practices that fertilize and replenish the soil. A partnership with a local beekeeping company has brought twenty professionally managed honeybee hives to the farm, and a pollinator education garden attracts enthusiasts of all ages.

Summer camps and school programs engage children in topics ranging from archaeology and arts enrichment, to family farming and the environment. Nature trails on the property are open year-round. Also, Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm is home to the Plum Island Airport, a small historic airfield that has been continually operating for more than a century. Learn more at historicnewengland.org/property/spencer-peirce-littlefarm/.

Preserving the Haying Tradition

Overlooking the Essex River, Cogswell’s Grant is a 165-acre farm with a long history of raising livestock and agricultural crops. Hayfields are still harvested today by a tenant farmer who pays his lease fee in hay, which is immediately taken to Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm to feed the foster farm animals. In addition to yielding hay, the farm is an important habitat for wildlife, including the meadowlarks and bobolinks who nest in the fields.

At Cogswell’s Grant and at Watson Farm in Rhode Island, farmers delay their spring haying to allow endangered field birds to fledge their young. Both Cogswell’s Grant and Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm also have extensive buffers of salt marshes. Salt hay has been a valuable crop on the Massachusetts North Shore for centuries and healthy salt marshes are more critical than ever to mitigate the effects of climate change and sea level rise.

The two farms are part of the Great Marsh, the largest continuous salt marsh in New England, 20,000 acres running from Cape Ann on the Massachusetts North Shore into New Hampshire. Learn more at historicnewengland.org/property/ cogswells-grant/.

Beyond the Farm Fields

Historic New England’s farms support a rich and diverse ecosystem including fields, woods, marsh, wetlands, and hedgerows that offer ideal environments for wildlife. Depending on time of year and location, visitors may see redwing blackbirds, killdeer, woodpeckers, bobolinks, swallows, sparrows, brown-headed cowbirds, hawks, osprey, and glossy ibis as well as other migratory birds in the spring and fall. Snakes, valued because they control grain- and hay-eating rodents, are found at the farms, along with fox, skunk, raccoon, opossum, and coyote in pastures and hayfields. Wetlands and marshy shorelines provide a habitat for frogs, turtles, and water birds and act as sponges, absorbing excess water during rainstorms and releasing it slowly back to the land, preventing flooding. They filter natural and manmade impurities including nitrogen, which, if allowed to reach clean water, causes dramatic blooms of algae that are harmful to fish. These wetlands are considered the best natural defense against the pollution of rivers, lakes, and coastal waters.

Discover more about the many ways organic farms are good for the earth and people at casey.farm/ location/cultivating-the-land/.

Because of the sustainable stormwater drainage system project underway at Watson Farm, the site is closed for the remainder of the 2022 season.