AGRICULTURAL SOCIETY — FIRST FAIRS — KAFIR CORN CARNIVAL — CHANGES IN METHODS — ALFALFA — KAFIR — INCREASE OF CROP ACREAGE — MARKET CONDITIONS — OATS AND WHEAT — PROGRESS — "KAFIR CORN" — COUNTY FARM.

The first agricultural society was organized in 1872, with Lewis Maxwell, president, and M. D. Ellis, secretary. An agricultural exhibition was held at Towanda during the fall of 1872. The grounds were prepared and track laid out and graded on the M. D. Ellis claim, the northeast quarter of section 9 in Towanda township. A very creditable showing was made in products of the farm, live stock, riding and driving on the track, etc., considering the age and opportunities of the times. It was not a money making institution. The grounds were unfenced and very little money was realized from "gate(?) receipts." The next year the fair was held in Douglass, where a good track had been prepared, the grounds fenced and buildings erected for live stock of all kinds, exhibits of the farm, etc. With the exception of a few years there has been since said time and still is held at Douglass a Butler county exposition by the Douglass Agricultural Society. The officers of this society now are: Ed Wilkerson, president; William Hilton, treasurer; J. A. Clay, secretary. This is one of the flourishing institutions of Southern Butler, and under its present management is a success in every particular.

Fairs were held for a number of years at El Dorado, southwest of the city, and then removed to the northwest part, where good buildings and a grandstand and amphitheater were erected and one of the fastest half-mile tracks in the State, but for some reason it was not a profitable venture for its promoters, and it ceased to exist.

The kafir corn carnival held in El Dorado during the fall is taking the place of the fair to some extent.

An agricultural history of Butler county, although it does not extend over a great lapse of time, shows some great changes. The really important farming period of its history does not extend back many decades. Its early agricultural efforts were mostly along the lines of live stock production. Markets being far away, too far to profitably market grain except through the agency of live stock. Emporia was

one of the early markets for the earliest settlers even points farther away.

The county's important agronomical history cannot be said to extend back farther than forty years and upon a well settled permanent basis for a considerably shorter period than that. Especially in the kinds of crops raised and in the manner of cultivation have the changes been remarkable. It is indeed quite a transition from the old style sod breaker and its ox team to the modern tractor with the its multiple plows.

But a more effective change and one of far more importance has been the adoption into the county's agriculture of those crops that are best suited to its soil and climate and in a large area like Butler county with a somewhat diversified soil as to its different sections these crops vary in importance somewhat throughout the county. The eastern part of the county being a rougher country, it has always been inclined to live stock, and the feed crops, while the western part has always been more of a grain growing section. The early settlers confined themselves mostly to the river valleys, whose fertile soil produced abundantly all the grain crops known in their times farther east. Corn easily became the leading crop with wheat at least an equal, at a little later date, in the western and more especially the northwestern part.

The open range the year round and prairie hay were the chief forage in the early days, and cattle fed upon this ration often presented a sorry spectacle by spring, it being a common occurrence to have to stand them on their feet every morning or pull them out of the creek where they had mired down and were too weak to extricate themselves.

Results were vastly different in such methods from those gained in feeding modern rations of grain, alfalfa and ensilage.

Farming methods were just as crude in the early days as the feeding operations. One early settler on the upper Whitewater who long owned and operated one of its fertile farms had a farm outfit which consisted of a lister, harrow and cultivator, which, with a wagon in which to gather his corn, comprised his whole equipment. His farm was run on the one crop plan and he himself frequently said that it had been run that way just about as long as it could be profitably. With the depletion of the fertility in the valley lands and the breaking out of the thinner uplands, then came a demand for other crops than the old order of oats, wheat and corn. Sorghum was early introduced and proved to be a valuable forage crop on the thinner soils and a great change. Its "sorghum lasses" was often a great blessing to the early settler, but it was neither a soil restorer nor a grain crop and it remained for alfalfa and kafir to supply these needs. These two crops have marked a wonderful improvement in Butler county agronomy and have contributed greatly to its present prosperous and profitable condition. It is interesting to note what a great change these two new crops have wrought in local agriculture, even quite recently. Their in-

troduction at first was rather slow. A majority of the settlers had come from a corn raising country and they clung tenaciously to maize, of which they had generally raised bountiful crops in the virgin soil of the fertile Walnut and Whitewater valleys and their tributaries. Many of the early settlers also declared that the fertility of these valleys was practically inexhaustible and could not see the need of a soil renevator[sic] like alfalfa. The spread of agronomy to the thinner uplands also did much to increase the importance and popularity of kafir. Alfalfa sprang into importance somewhat earlier and quicker than kafir, the latter having only been introduced into this country from Africa by the National Department of Agriculture in 1885, and soon after into this locality. Neither of these crops were raised to any extent in Butler county previous to 1890, although alfalfa had been a well known crop in parts of our country from the earliest times and was an important forage plant in ancient times.

It soon gained in importance and popularity in the county's crop list, especially in those bottom lands whose fertility had been somewhat exhausted, perhaps so much that corn raising was rather unprofitable, and alfalfa here fitted to the soil and into the rotation admirably.

The increase in its acreage during the nineties was rather slow though, there being only 13,000 acres in the county in 1900. The next five years it made a remarkable increase in acreage, being over 35,000 acres in 1905, but since then the acreage has remained about stationary on the average, there being a few less acres in 1912 than there were in 1905. One of the most interesting matters in Butler county's crop statistics has been the struggle for the first place as a grain crop between corn and kafir. In 1899 there was raised in Butler county 180,553 acres of corn and 26,768 acres of kaffir[sic] or about one-seventh as much acreage. In 1912 the acreage had so changed that the acreage stood, corn 84,417. and kafir 119,304 acres. In that year assessors' returns in the county gave kafir an acreage value of $14 per acre and white corn was rated at $12.65. In the previous year results were even more striking as corn was rated at an average acre of $10.62, while kafir was given a value of $15 per acre.

These dry years since 1911 were the cause of the great preponderance of kafir. It will also be noticed in scanning statistics that the large increase in the alfalfa acreage dates from the dry year of 1901. On the other hand, after wet years, there has often been a great return to corn and the small grains, there being a considerable dislike to kafir among many farmers on account of its feeding qualities, harvesting and effect on land, but kafir will probably contine[sic] to reign supreme on the thin uplands at least, and crowd corn closely for second place on much of the better land.

The increase in cultivated acreage has not been large of late years, there being 280,281 acres in cultivation in 1900 anl[sic] 291,965 acres in 1912. This small increase is probably greatly due to the large increase in im-

portance of the county's live stock interests, increased pasture rates and good prices for prairie hay in recent years. In can be remembered not many years back when pasturage rates were seventy five cents and $1.00 per season or some years previous to that the open range was to be had. Now, $6 to $8 per head is a common pasturage rate.

It is very pleasing to the grain raiser to notice that in recent years the locality has had greatly increased prices. This is partly due to general conditions and also to local ones. In the past quite often the grain raised in the county was worth market price less the freight to market or perhaps the market was quite variable, there not being a steady local demand. For example: In the great corn year of 1889, corn sold in the fall from ten cents to fifteen cents per bushel; the next spring it was worth fifty cents. Fifteen cents to twenty-five cents was a common price for corn in some earlier years of the county's history. Nowadays, the old conditions of grain prices is often reversed, owing to the great local demand for grain in live stock feeding. Many communities in the county do not supply enough grain for their local demands and consequently their grain is worth market price plus the amount of freight it takes to bring it there from its point of origin or at least an approximate to that price. These conditions sometimes enable Butler county farmers to receive more than Kansas City or even Chicago prices for their feed grain, but, of course, does not apply to the food grain, wheat, as so much of it still moves East toward the center of population. The county's wheat production has remained stationary for many years, or has fallen off, since of late years has given way somewhat to more diversified farming, the acreage formerly devoted to it in the western and northern parts of the county being devoted to alfalfa or kafir in many instances.

In 1900 there was raised 11,711 acres of wheat, which was accounted an acre value of $10.26., there being an average yield of about nineteen bushels per acre. In 1912 there was produced 9,332 acres, yielding eighting[sic bushels per acre; but with an acre value of $15.50, showing a much better price for the grain this year than the previous one. The oats crops also has remained rather stationary for a long term of years, being used chiefly as a rotation crop, it may vary considerably from year to year, but continues to maintain about the same acreage for ten years. In 1900 the county produced 21,492 acres of oats, and in 1912 the crop was 25,008 acres.

Farming methods have changed almost as much as the crops themselves. In early times, or perhaps it would be more proper to say during the middle ages of Butler county agriculture, the lister was almost the universal planter, but of late years it has fallen somewhat into ill-repute. More plowing is done. Better horses are available than formerly, making more and better plowing possible. The gas tractor is also becoming quite common. In fact, the farmer of a quarter of a century ago would hardly recognize the local conditions of today. Perhaps

many changes may be chronicled in the coming twenty-five years, but surely not more effective ones than in the past period of that duration. We know at least that Butler county agronomy has reached a point where it is upon a firm and stable basis.

THE COUNTY FARM.

The county farm was purchased during the year 1878 from William Crimble for the sum of $4,000; afterward, during the year 1898, there was added thereto about thirty acres and the present buildings erected thereon.

As a general proposition the farm has been self-sustaining and is, of course, of much greater value today, than when the county became the owner, and many persons whose lives were failures, by reason of affliction, mental and physical, have found a home therein where at least the necessities of life were furnished and where a goodly number have laid down the burden of a life that had been destitute of those things for which men strive, luxuries, enjoyment, hope or faith; inheriting and taking possession of that six feet of earth that makes all of one size, including the superintendent and the inmate.

The farm was opened for settlement in March, 1879, Robert F. Moore, of Benton township, becoming the first superintendent. Since that time there have been the following superintendents in the order named:

The first year, 1879, there were thirty-six homeless and destitute admitted, one of whom is still with the county. From the records it is practically impossible to give an estimate of the number received since the home was established. There are now, in 1916, only nine persons dependent upon the county for support at the county farm, some of whom are partially self-supporting.

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