7 The 100 Most Influential Inventors of All Time 7

output was about a thousand plows. Deciding that Grand

Detour was not well situated in regard to transportation

and resources, Deere sold his interest in the shop to

Andrus in 1847 and moved to Moline, Ill. There he began

using imported English steel with great success and

soon negotiated with Pittsburgh manufacturers for the

development of comparable steel plate. By 1857 Deere’s

annual output of plows had risen to 10,000.

In 1858 Deere took his son Charles into partnership

and in 1863 his son-in-law, Stephen H. Velie; in 1868 the

firm was incorporated as Deere & Company. Deere

remained president of the company for the rest of his

life. Gradually Deere & Company began manufacturing

cultivators and other agricultural implements. It is still a

major American manufacturer of farm machinery and

industrial equipment. Still headquartered in Moline, Ill.,

it witnessed five generations of Deere family leadership

from its inception until 1982.

Claude-Étienne Minié

(b. Feb. 13, 1804, Paris, France—d. Dec. 14, 1879, Paris)

C

laude-Étienne Minié was a French army officer

who solved the problem of designing a bullet for

the muzzle-loading rifle. The bullet became known as the

Minié ball.

After serving in several African campaigns in the

Chasseurs, Minié rose to the rank of captain. In the 1840s

he applied himself to the problem of rifled weapons. As

killing machines, the old smoothbore infantry muskets

were relatively inefficient. Their heavy, round lead balls

delivered lethal blows when they hit a human body, but

beyond 75 yards (68 metres) even trained infantrymen

found it difficult to hit an individual adversary, and at 300