A. D. Wagoner, of El Dorado township, is not only a prominent farmer and stockman of Butler county, but he is a dominant factor in the affairs of the county. Mr. Wagoner came to Kansas with his parents when he was a child. The Wagoner family settled in Jefferson county upon coming to this State, and some years later A. D. Wagoner and his two brothers settled at Harveyville, where they engaged in the cattle business on an extensive scale. Their place was known as "Wagoner Brothers' Stock Farm," and for a number of years this was one of the leading stock concerns of the State. They handled as many cattle as any other firm in Kansas, doing an enormous business in that line.

In 1904, A. D. Wagoner, with his wife and two young daughters, came to Butler county and located on a farm a short distance south of El Dorado, in El Dorado township. This is one of the fine productive bottom land farms of Butler county. During his first few years in Butler county. Mr. Wagoner fed cattle, and while he made money in that department of animal husbandry, he has found raising and feeding hogs a more profitable business, and during the past few years he has applied his efforts to this line of endeavor with very satisfactory results from a financial standpoint. Mr. Wagoner's broad acres of fertile land are largely devoted to alfalfa and corn in connection with hog raising, and while the average farmer suffers more or less loss from dry and uncertain seasons, Mr. Wagoner is sure of a profit from some one of his three specialties, and a least comes out even in the others. He conducts his farming operations on a safe business and scientific basis, and the student of modern agricultural methods can derive the basis of a real successful plan of

conducting a farm in a profitable and practical way by following Mr. Wagoner's method.

Mr. Wagoner has seen many changes since coming to Butler county. He is a close observer and is a constant student of events. He says he remembers when thirty-fiye cents per bushel was considered a good price for corn, as compared with the present average price of eighty cents, and it was only a short time ago that hogs brought only from five to six cents per pound, as compared to the present average of nearly twice that much. Many other market conditions are now in proportion, and he believes that an industrious farmer has no just cause for complaint under present conditions.

Within a few rods of Mr. Wagoner's place is the station, Vanora, with switch and loading facilities on the line of the Atchison, Topeka & Santa Fe railroad, and this market facility is of inestimable value to his place as well as to the other farmers and stockmen of that immediate locality. Such close proximity of a station reduces the expense of marketing, or hauling to market, which is of great importance to the producer.

Mr. Wagoner is a strong advocate of good roads, and points to the telephone as another medium which is of great importance to the farmer and which has put a new phase on rural life; but, he says, that the telephone service, like the roads, can he improved. He has great faith in the future oil and gas development in Butler county, and is gratified to see the countless number of wells yielding the rich underground treasure. Yet, he says, "Let us not lose sight of the fact that it is the farmers and stockmen who are entitled to the credit for the great 'State of Butler' being here.

Mr. Wagoner owns one of the best farms in Butler county and is one of its most prosperous farmers and stockmen.

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