Events and Activities HENRY A. WALLACE, FORGOTTEN CORN YIELD PIONEER, AT CP LIBRARY APRIL 19

We Iowans owe a bunch of our routine 200-bushel-plus corn yields to fellow Iowan Henry A. Wallace (1881-1965) who started the hybrid corn revolution in the early 20th century.

The Center Point Historical Society is sponsoring a free Henry A. re-enactment by Amana actor Tom Milligan on Sunday, April 19, at 2 p.m. at the Center Point Library little basement.

When Wallace was a smart little central Iowa kid, farmers were saving their own open-pollinated corn for seed. Popular varieties were based on corn ¢â‚¬Å“beauty contests. ¢â‚¬ � Young Wallace wondered, ¢â‚¬Å“What ¢â‚¬â„¢s it look like to a hog? ¢â‚¬ � and did his own corn yield experiments. He graduated from Iowa State and later helped start the Iowa State Corn Yield Tests. In 1926, he founded Pioneer Hi-Bred Corn ¢â‚¬â€�this year is Pioneer ¢â‚¬â„¢s 100th birthday. (Pioneer is now a subsidiary of Indianapolis-based Corteva Agriscience.)

Hybrid corn wasn ¢â‚¬â„¢t his only claim to fame. He edited his family's "Wallaces Farmer" magazine for more than a decade before becoming Franklin Delano Roosevelt ¢â‚¬â„¢s U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, helping keep American farmers from going under during the Depression.

Historian Arthur Schlesinger called Henry A. ¢â‚¬Å“the best Secretary of Agriculture the country has ever had. ¢â‚¬ � The U.S. Beltsville Agricultural Research Center in Maryland was renamed in Wallace ¢â‚¬â„¢s honor in 2000. (The Trump administration is now closing the Center.)

Wallace was FDR ¢â‚¬â„¢s vice-president in the third term. He ran for president against Truman as the Progressive Party candidate and was badly defeated in 1948.

President Roosevelt once told him, ¢â‚¬Å“You know, Henry, the things you believe in are all going to come some day. Your problem is you ¢â‚¬â„¢re just too far ahead of your time. ¢â‚¬ �