Herding Cows and Kids

The cover of the dispersal catalog used in the sale of the diary herd in 1966 (courtesy of Raymond Sprague II). Click to open a PDF with some excerpts from the catalog.

Herdsman George Cilley and the 1966 Dispersal

Raymond A. Sprague and wife Rosemary purchased Midridge Farms in Hillsboro, New Hampshire, in the 1950s and ran the farm as a working dairy until 1966. He and Rosemary then retired to a new home they built on some of the farm’s pasture land, where local farmers continued to summer their herds up through the 1990s.

The July/August 1960 New England Holstein Bulletin included a short article about the family, the farm’s history, and the herd. It opens with this brief sketch:

“In 1951 Raymond A. Sprague, now a successful and respected breeder of registered Holsteins […] gave up his partnership in the New York brokerage firm of his father and toured New England with his wife, the former Rosemary Lockwood of Stamford, Connecticut, in search of a suitable country place to rear their children.

“A graduate of Williams College, class of ‘35, Raymond was well prepared for the business and social life of a broker but rather ill-prepared for farming. In fact when he purchased a portion of the magnificent Rosewald estate at Hillsboro, New Hampshire, he was virtually a ‘babe in the woods’ insofar as his realization o the highly specialized, scientific requirements of farming and cattle breeding are concerned.

“We mentioned this simply because he has gone so far and accomplished so much in spite pf lack of early farm background. Int he short space of less than a decade he has turned this declining land into a place of great beauty and fertility and become highly regarded among his New England countrymen.” (Read the full article here)

Herdsman George Cilley joined Midridge a few years after the Spragues established the farm. He was brought in to work with the herd; as he tells it, Ray made him a deal: if George took care of the inside work, Ray would do the outside labor. The family’s recollection is that Ray had no love for the cows themselves, although he enjoyed the complicated challenge of breeding excellent Holsteins. Although not the first herdsman at Midridge, George was by far the best and most beloved by the family. When the Spragues made the difficult decision to sell the herd in 1966, a catalog accompanied the sale. It outlined the bloodlines of the available cows, and George was also featured.

Reprinted in the dispersal catalog, the image above ran with the following caption: “Willis Conard & George Cilley and the ‘Solitaire’ cow, to all of whom Mr. Sprague gives full credit for the progress of the Midridge Farm herd. Quality Symbol Solitaire (VH-86) is a daughter of Osborndale Quality Symbol with a top record of 22, 247 milk 875 fat at 6 yrs. Present record will put her over the 100,000 lb. mark.”

Needly’s annotations in his copy of the dispersal catalog note the purchaser of each cow and the agreed-on price.

George was a young man when he first moved to the farm with wife Marge and their three children. He was tailed constantly by the three Sprague children—Katy, Needly (Ray), and Pooh (Lockwood). Katy was, in fact, the first of the Spragues to meet George when he drove up from Milford to interview with her father. The boys remember roping George into baseball games, apple fights in the barn, and wrestling matches. George recalls that their father had a knack for entering at inopportune times, as when Needly and Pooh had successfully wrestling George into submission over a hay bale, or when George pinned Needly to the ground (see video clip below).

It was George who had the idea that Midridge should show Holsteins at the Hopkinton fairgrounds, something that Ray initially resisted; George recalls that Ray didn’t want the kids to miss school for that purpose. However, he trusted George’s advice. After a positive initial experience, for several years the herdsmen—and the Sprague kids—would have a lot of fun and also raise the visibility of the herd by showing at the fair .

George and family, back in the Upper Valley area of Vermont and New Hampshire, stays in close touch with Pooh Sprague and family at Edgewater Farm. He recently took part in a small video reunion, and shared stories of their time at Midridge.