THE BUSINESS OF BREEDING: PUBLIC AND PRIVATE DEVELOPMENT OF HYBRID CORN IN ILLINOIS, 1890-1940 (AGRICULTURE, AGRIBUSINESS, FUNK BROTHERS)

Between 1890 and 1940 practical corn breeders and academic biologists and geneticists studied corn breeding, the former aiming to improve field performance and yield, and the latter attempting to discover Mendelian patterns of inheritance. Within the land-grant university context, these two agendas were combined as agriculturalists attempted to improve corn performance through the application of scientific principles including Mendelian genetics. Agribusiness also provided a context for the scientific solution to practical problems. Modeling themselves after the land-grant institutions, agribusinesses worked to develop both commercially viable hybrids and a reputation for enlightened science. But while the University and agribusiness followed nearly parallel paths, often cooperating on research projects, by the early 1930s their goals and strategies diverged as hybrids left the experimental and entered the commercial arena. This study has been guided by two questions: first, by what process does science pure become science applied, and second, how does this process differ between land-grant institutions and private industry. Focusing on the development of hybrid corn in Illinois, I examine the research and extension strategies of the University of Illinois agricultural college, particularly the experiment station and extension service, and three seed companies, particularly Funk Brothers. University research and extension efforts reflected the University\u27s public service commitment to a wide variety of farmers, farming conditions, political obligations, and economic necessities. These sometimes contradictory demands on the University in turn created an ambivalence toward hybrids; while University geneticists produced hybrids for later distribution, extension specialists taught farmers traditional improvement techniques that were incompatible with hybrids. Seed companies, on the other hand, faced no such contradictions, and by aggressively marketing hybrids in the early 1930s, forced the University to redefine its role in Illinois agriculture. While early in the century the University had served as the ultimate authority on agricultural matters, by 1940 its role was increasingly regulatory as it sought the balance between research and commerce, theory and necessity. Agricultural science in this context was in the end a compromise between natural and human forces