Deere & Mansur Company
Established in 1877, and a subsidiary of Deere since the merger of 1911, the Deere & Mansur Works grew to be the largest planter factory in the world-the home of the world's leading make Deere & Mansur Works, 1940 of corn planters.
Charles H. Deere, son of John Deere (and at that time vice president of Deere & Co.), was the first president of Deere & Mansur, but the new company which he headed was not at first a subsidiary corporation of Deere & Co. It was recognized, of course, that the John Deere line of implements must be expanded, but it was determined that the policy should be to have only one leading implement manufactured by any one plant, in order that it might be made and marketed by specialists.
Accordingly, men considered most capable for designing and manufacturing planters were chosen, and they watched over the planning and production of Deere & Mansur's first planter with the same care that John Deere had used on his first steel plow. The perfected implement, the Edge Drop Corn Planter, became famous throughout the agricultural world. Because of its accuracy it materially increased corn yields-actually adding millions of dollars to the nation's agricultural wealth.
Probably passing time proved that it would be impractical, if not impossible, to have separate John Deere plants for each of the many types of agricultural implements, and that careful management would maintain the quality which the original policy had been intended to preserve. As result, Deere & Mansur expanded rapidly, and by 1885 had added stalk cutters, drills, I seeders, and the Deere hay rake to its line. In 1953, the Deere & Mansur line included cotton and corn planters and single-action and double-action disk harrows, including the justly famous Model "S", pioneer single-action tractor disk harrow.
Many are the products which have helped to establish and maintain the Deere & Mansur Works in its position of leadership. Among them are: (1) the original Edge Drop Corn Planter, (2) the No.9 check-row corn planter, introduced in 1901, of which hundreds still are in use even though none has been made since 1915; (3) the famous No.999, introduced in 1913, and an unquestioned king of the cornfields, (4) the safety fertilizer attachment for corn planters, pioneered by Deere & Mansur in 1928, and (5) high-speed corn planters for tractor use, introduced in 1940, capable of planting more than 500 hills a minute with unfailing accuracy.
Copyright© 2003 Deere & Company Archives