Green, Yellow & Gold

Every auto license plate in Illinois is green and yellow this year--an unusual public tribute to a private company. The colors are the state's way of honoring the 125th anniversary of Moline's Deere & Co., whose distinctive green and yellow colors have for years identified its tractors, farm machinery and, lately, its light industrial equipment. After all, almost every inch of Illinois was plowed, furrowed, dug or smoothed at one time or another by some piece of Deere machinery. Since Blacksmith John Deere perfected the first steel plow in 1837--the plow that broke the plains--Deere has become the leading seller of farm equipment in the U.S.

This is a fine year to be a farm-equipment maker. Good crops, good weather and a record cash farm income of $37.5 billion in 1962 have sent the farmer on a buying spree, to the benefit of the $2 billion farm-equipment industry. Deere's domestic sales, which reached $541.5 million last year, are already up 25% for 1963's first fiscal half, and are expected to top $600 million for the year; first half earnings are 59% higher than last year. Deere's 24 factories and 30,000 employees make some 300 different machines, plus attachments that can be used to create some 8,700 combinations.

Fifth Head. Deere has long been a fascinating combination of conservatism and innovation. Its president, William Hewitt, 48, a San Francisco-born marketing expert, is only the fifth man to head the company since John Deere founded it. The company's history is largely one of careful, unspectacular growth. Yet Deere produced the first cotton harvester, the first hay bale ejector and the first power steering for tractors. Under Hewitt, president for eight years, the emphasis has switched even more strongly to innovation, and Deere has abandoned its conservative image.

After years of sticking strictly to farm machinery, Deere moved into chemicals in 1954, two years later entered the industrial-equipment field with boom-or plow-equipped industrial tractors that perform every task from stacking logs to burying telephone cable. The company began moving overseas in 1956, now does a $64 million business from eight plants abroad. Next month it intends to enter the consumer market for the first time with a 7-h.p. lawn and garden tractor.

Texas Gala. The mainstay of Deere's business is still the tractor, which accounts for 40% of sales. Three years ago, feeling that the modern farmer needed something better than the two-cylinder "poppin' Johnny" tractors it had been making for 37 years. Deere closed down its plants for six months and retooled for a completely new line of four-and six-cylinder tractors. Forgetting its usual conservatism, the company introduced the new line at a Texas gala that featured a diamond-studded tractor in a NeimanMarcus window adorned by a model in spangled coveralls. The tractors even have a posture seat designed by Dr. Janet Travell, President Kennedy's back expert. President Hewitt's life down on the farm (on the banks of the Rock River) is not exactly typical of his customers' way of life. He and his wife raise 130 Arabian horses, love to ride and sail, get away to Europe for at least two months almost every year. A trim and distinguished-looking man who likes expensive suits and first-class living, Hewitt collects art and is hipped on architecture. The company's new headquarters, designed by the late architect Eero Saarinen, is a striking seven-story steel-and-glass building set on a lake--gouged out by tractors.

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