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Article: High tech plows a new path for John Deere
- Article from:
- The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel (Milwaukee, WI)
- Article date:
- March 7, 1999
- Author:
CopyrightCopyright 1999 The Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. Provided by ProQuest LLC. (Hide copyright information)
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About an hour's drive northeast from here in 1837 at a hamlet
called Grand Detour, a transplanted Vermonter named John Deere
emerged from his blacksmith shop with the answer to his farming
neighbors' prayers. And, frequently, curses.
It was a self-scouring steel plow fashioned from a broken saw
blade, designed to rip through the rich black soil of the Midwest
without clumping up and requiring constant scraping.
The problem was so vexing that some had considered giving up on
the fertile Midwest soil, but as Deere walked behind the horse and
moist soil curled away in a neat furrow one bystander was moved to
declare, according to one account, "By cracky, she's clean."
Deere was off and ...