equipment business and transforming it into the main profit center for the parent corporation. He said, "Some say that General Falk pulled Harry Merritt into Milwaukee to liquidate the ailing tractor division. Others say that he was brought in to breathe new life into the moribund and unprofitable operation. Even if the first appraisal is correct, the second proved to be the way it turned out. […] After Merritt's arrival, the profit picture changed. The farm equipment business proved to be a financial lifesaver for the corporation. […] From next to nothing in 1927, Merritt saw the percentage of farm equipment business go to just short of sixty percent of corporate sales." Also in 1926, Allis-Chalmers acquired Nordyke Marmon & Company of Indianapolis, Indiana, a maker of flour-milling equipment. In 1927, it acquired the Pittsburgh Transformer Company, a maker of electrical transformers. In 1928, Allis-Chalmers acquired the Monarch Tractor Company of Springfield, Illinois, thus adding a line of crawler tractors. In 1929, it acquired the La Crosse Plow Works of La Crosse, Wisconsin. The La Crosse Plow Works had a good-quality plow and various desirable implements, which now expanded the Allis-Chalmers implement line. Also in 1929, Harry Merritt was in California when the bright orange California poppy blossoms inspired him to think about the use of bright colors in marketing. Brightly colored things that can be seen from far away had potential in farm equipment marketing. He soon changed the paint color of Allis-Chalmers's tractors to Persian Orange, the available paint color that he felt most closely resembled the California poppy's color. Thus began the tradition of orange Allis-Chalmers tractors. Various competitors would follow suit over the next decade, as International Harvester switched to all-red (1936), Minneapolis-Moline switched to Prairie Gold (late 1930s), and Case switched to Flambeau Red (late 1930s). John Deere already had a distinctive color scheme with its bright green and yellow. In 1928, Henry Ford canceled U.S. production of the Fordson tractor. This disrupted the business of many firms: farm equipment dealers who sold Fordsons and aftermarket equipment builders whose attachments were designed to mount on Fordsons (for example, the Gleaner combines of the 1920s mounted on Fordsons, and many Fordson industrial tractors used aftermarket attachments). Many of these firms formed a conglomerate in 1928 called the United Tractor & Equipment corporation. United arranged a deal with Allis-Chalmers to build a tractor to substitute for the