Farm-Based Education

It all started when…

In 1905, Charlotte Barrell Ware, an educated and curious woman who loved farms and farm animals, convinced her husband, Robert Ware, that they should buy back his family’s ancestral farm.

Around the same time, the sanitary movement was sweeping American society. Mrs Ware’s acquaintances in Boston academia were testing dairy products offered for sale to the public, and finding that they all blew past newly-established food safety laws restricting allowed bacterial counts.

It turned out to be the perfect combination. Working together with scientists, Mrs Ware developed protocols for producing and bottling the healthiest milk available anywhere. Though pasteurization did already exist at the time, it would seem that not many New England farmers were willing or able to use it, but the procedures designed, tested, and taught at the Warelands Dairy School could be put into effect anywhere. In fact, the basics—sanitization of equipment, rapid cooling of fresh milk, and regular testing to verify their effectiveness—still underpin safe raw milk production in the 21st century!

Historic preservation of this important site means not just making it a museum to this important work, but creating a living site where today’s students can learn about agriculture, architecture, and the social history of a site that has been feeding its community for centuries.