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THE UNFORTUNATE LEGACY OF THE WAGONER FARMERS
In the early 1870s when Benjamin Wagoner and family reached Webster County, they found the Republican River bottom land already taken, so they went south several miles into the rolling hills adjacent to the bottom land. On the creek banks they found gooseberry, chokeberry, and plum bushes as well as cottonwood, ash, elm, and hackberry trees. The rolling hills were covered with 10 to 15 inch tall native grasses. Benjamin must have thought, "This looks like the garden of Eden, I'll take it!" So he and some of the older boys took out homesteads. Noah acquired a homestead adjacent to Benjamin's.
They took out their sod buster plows and started turning the sod into farmland on the bottom land next to the creeks. They planted corn and alfalfa and started raising hogs. As they needed more land, they started turning the sod on the hillsides into crop land. Somehow they must have thought that a good farmer makes straight rows. Noah used to tell how the corn made 40 bushels to the acre. They continued listing corn in the same way, and gradually the corn yield per acre began to drop, and more of the lignt colored subsoil began to show on the slopes.
In 1933,1 as a 19 year old boy just out of high school started farming Noah's homestead. 1 followed the "good farming practice" and made straight lister rows up and down the slopes. In the fall of that year I started husking the corn. Starting at the creek bottom land, the ears of corn were plentiful and good size. As 1 had to call "Whoa!" to the team so I could catch up with the wagon. As I proceeded up the slopes, there were fewer and fewer ears of corn, and they were much smaller in size. I could keep up with the team. The 120 acres of listed corn made 20 bushels to the acre. The next spring I listed corn in the same manner. Soon after the corn was planted, there was a 3 or 4 inch rain. The creeks became bank full of very muddy water. After the rain I went out to see what damage was done to my listed corn. On the slopes I found loose dirt in the bottom of the lister rows was gone as well as the seedlings.
We were concerned that the high water would wash out the local bridges instead of thinking, "There goes more of the farmland down the creeks, the Republican, the Missouri, and Mississippi Rivers to the delta forming in the Gulf of Mexico.
So, in some 60 years, the grassland on the rolling hills became submarginal farmland. I shamefully admit I contributed to the process.
Signed by Charles Wagoner of Redding, CA 90 years old
Submitted by Linda (Wagoner) Lygrisse, Denver, CO
Charles is the son of Jesse,son of Noah, son of Benjamin, the original pioneer
He is the first cousin and childhood friend of my father Daniel.

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