less nutritious, and less desirable than that
from the winter wheat made in the same way. About the year 1871 it was
discovered that a new process of manufacturing flour was in operation on
the Danube and at Budapest. Mr. George H. Christian, a partner of Gov.
C. C. Washburn in the milling business at Minneapolis, studied the
invention, which consisted of crushing the wheat by means of rollers
made of steel and porcelain, instead of grinding it, as of old, to which
the French had added a new process of eliminating the bran specs from
the crushed product, by means of a flat oscillating screen or bolt with
an upward blast of air through it, upon which the crushed product was
placed and cleansed of all bran impurities. In 1871 Gen. C. C. Washburn
and Mr. Christian introduced this French invention into their mills in
Minneapolis, and derived from it great advantage in the appearance and
value of their flour. This was called a "middlings purifier." In 1874
they introduced the roller crushing process, and the result was, that
the hard spring wheat returned a flour superior to the product of the
winter wheat, and placed Minnesota upon more than an equality with the
best flour-producing states in the Union. This process has been
universally adopted throughout the United States in all milling
localities, with great advantage to that industry.

It is a rather curious fact that, as all our milling knowledge was
originally inherited from England, which country is very sluggish in the
adoption of new methods, it was not until our improved flour reached
that country that the English millers accepted the new method, and have
since acted upon it. It is a case of the pupil instructing his
preceptor.

I regard the introduction of these improvements in the manufacture of
flour into this state as of prime importance to its growth and increase
of wealth and strength. It is estimated by the best judges that the
value of our spring wheat was increased at least twenty per cent by
their adoption, and when we consider that the state produced, in 1898,
78,418,000 bushels of wheat, its magnitude can be better appreciated. It
formerly required five bushels of wheat to make a barrel of flour; under
the new process it only takes four bushels and seven pounds to make a
barrel of the same weight--196 pounds.

The only record that is kept of flour in Minnesota is for the two points
of Minneapolis and the head of the lakes; the latter including Duluth