Company History:

One of the five oldest companies in the United States, Deere & Company is the world's largest manufacturer of agricultural equipment and a major U.S. producer of construction, forestry, and lawn and grounds care equipment. The company has factories throughout the world and distributes its products in more than 160 countries through independent retail dealers--nearly 5,000 worldwide. It is also active in financial services--retail and lease financing and insurance--and provides health care benefit management services to nearly 900 companies and government agencies in eight states. Deere has been an industry innovator since John Deere introduced the first successful self-cleaning steel plow in 1837. At that time, most Americans lived on farms; now many of Deere's customers belong to the upper five percent of the nation's farmers, who take in 80 percent of the net farm income; these farmers run big farms that need sophisticated equipment.

Early History

Born in 1804 in Vermont, John Deere was a blacksmith renowned for his craftsmanship and inventiveness. After a business depression in the 1830s, Deere, like many young easterners, migrated west. He settled in Grand Detour, Illinois, where his blacksmith business thrived. He soon saw that the cast-iron hand plow that pioneers had brought from the East did not work well in midwestern soil, which clung to the plow's bottom and made it necessary for the farmer to scrape off the soil every few feet. Deere developed a plow with a polished and specially shaped moldboard and share, which scoured itself after lifting the soil.

This first plow was made from a broken sawblade, but the tool quickly became so popular with Deere's customers that he began to make plows before he got orders for them--a revolutionary practice in those days. In 1843 Deere ordered a shipment of rolled steel from England. This move enabled him to expand his business, and three years later, he was able to get steel made to his specifications from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania mills. In 1847 Deere moved his business to Moline, Illinois, near the Mississippi River, which provided water power and convenient transportation. By 1850 he was producing 1,600 plows a year.

Known to say, "I will never put my name on a plow that does not have in it the best that is in me," Deere continued to improve his plows and to tailor them for different soil conditions. In 1868 the business was incorporated as Deere & Company. In 1869 Deere named his son, Charles Deere, vice-president and treasurer of the company. When John Deere died in 1886, Charles succeeded him as president.

Charles Deere focused on the company's distribution system, establishing wholesale branches to market and distribute Deere equipment to the independent dealers who sold it. The product line was also expanded. The Gilpin Sulky Plow, launched in 1874, had the capacity to plow three acres in 12 hours, and in 1898 the new Deere Gang Plow, which used four horses instead of three and could plow six acres in 12 hours, was introduced. In the early 1900s, Deere plows were powered by steam engines. By the time Charles Deere died in 1907, the company was manufacturing a range of cultivators, steel plows, corn and cotton planters, and other tools.

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