Pioneer was purchased by the DuPont company in Delaware. Cross pollinating the selected varieties created work for thousands of teenagers detasslers who every summer walked through the rows removing the tassels from one variety so the ears could be pollinated by the selected alternative. New seed must be purchased every year, creating an ongoing market for the company. However, hybrid seed from one harvest does not retain its vigor if replanted. Hybrid seed has better yields and is drought and disease resistant. Wallace, changed the face of corn production first across the Midwest and then the world with its hybrid seed. Iowa seed companies now do international business. Today, the John Deere line of farm and lawn products is known world wide by its distinctive green and yellow color.
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After World War I created a demand for the tractor, the company was purchased by John Deere, an Illinois-based company that manufactured a full line of farm implements. In 1895, along with some business partners from Waterloo, Froelich formed the Waterloo Gasoline Engine Company. John Froelich invented the first gasoline-powered engine mobile in the field. The manufacture of agricultural machinery included some significant Iowa industries and became a major source of employment. Meat packing was the leading manufacturing industry in the state at the turn of the 20th century. With refrigeration, slaughter houses in Iowa dressed beef and pork and sent it to eastern cities. Before refrigeration, livestock dealers had to pay for cattle and hogs to be fed and watered on their way to Chicago stock yards. The invention of the refrigerated railroad car led to the rise of meat-packing in Iowa. Iowa and AgricultureĪgriculture has always been Iowa's major industry and the roots of many of Iowa’s first business ventures. When train engines began shifting to diesel fuel in the 1920s, most of the mines closed and many mining towns disappeared. Mining was often part-time work, and the miners had to find other employment. Many were immigrants from Wales, Italy, Croatia or Sweden and added ethnic diversity to the population. In the latter 19th and early 20th centuries, however, local mines employed hundreds of miners.
However, Iowa's soft and smoky coal was inferior to the hard anthracite in Pennsylvania and West Virginia. The companies sold the land and used the money to finance line construction.Ĭoal deposits across southern and central Iowa provided fuel to Iowa railroads, households and a few early businesses.
The rails were allocated additional acres along the proposed routes as they completed the required numbers of miles of track. Private railroads received a bonanza when the federal government provided land grants to four trunk lines. Clinton was once reported to have more millionaires per capita than any other city in the nation thanks to the success of several lumber dealers. Some of the first business ventures were the mills along Iowa's rivers that ground grain or cut logs into lumber. How have Iowa-born companies transformed both local and international business?
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