REPORT OF THE STATISTICIAN. 169 



But while European millers have enlarged and fortified their interest 

 by the latest scientific appliances, Americau millers have shown still 

 greater enterprise. With the world's markets lor cheap flours prac- 

 tically assured them, 'they have entered upon a keen competition with 

 European millers for the supply of the better grades. At the begin- 

 ning of the present century our processes of milling were of a very 

 primitive description, embracing generally but a single pair of buhrs 

 and a reel. Many improvements upon this rude mechanism were grad- 

 ually introduced during the first half of the century, but the original 

 crude idea was still maintained, the production of as much flour as 

 possible from a single grinding. The cells of gluten and starch in the 

 grain were separated by mashing or squeezing, so as to leave a mini- 

 mum of middlings, as the latter could be made available only in low- 

 grade flour. This was the exclusive rationale of milling in American 

 mills till within a few years. 



What is called the new process in flour-manufacture was but lately 

 heard of in the mills of Minnesota. Though a new process in this country, 

 it is only the adaptation of an idea that has prevailed in the mills of 

 Hungary for sixty years, represented there in a process called "half-high 

 milling." Americau millers, however, have introduced very important 

 modifications. The object of both the American and Hungarian sys- 

 tems.is to obtain the maximum proportion of middlings and the purifi- 

 cation of the middlings before regriudiug into flour. The Hungarian 

 system accomplishes these results by a complicated and bewildering 

 series of processes. The American system, with constant improvements 

 in machinery, is abridging this series, and obtaining nearly the same 

 results with fewer and simpler manipulations. The delegate of the 

 Austro-Hungarian Millers' Association to the late Centennial Exposition 

 at Philadelphia says that the two systems are identical in principle 

 and results, and that Americau flour production is destined to become 

 a still more formidable competitor to European millers. Both seek first 

 to disintegrate, not to crush, the granules of the wheat, which are, as 

 far as possible, preserved unbroken ; their coating of cellular tissue pro- 

 tects their nitrogenous contents from the consuming chemistry of the 

 atmosphere and from tiie germs of microscopic vegetation floating 

 everywhere around us. The buhrs also do not heat the cells as under 

 the old system, involving, as it did, the absorption of moisture and 

 chemical changes in the body of the grain. The new process avoids 

 several chemical compounds of disagreeable taste and smell which 

 formerly afl'ected the flour, which now embraces all the normal elements 

 of the berry in their natural state. 



The American process originated in Minnesota. A brief article in the 

 annual report of this Department for 1875 gives some interesting facts 

 in regard to its origin and introduction. At least one-fourth of the mills 

 of Minnesota are constructed with reference to this "high-milling" proc- 

 ess. The wheat of that region is almost entirely spring-sown, but its 

 hard, brittle nature renders it peculiarly fit for this kind of manufacture. 

 Spring-wheat flour formerly ruled much below vrinter-wheat flour; but 

 the " patent springs " now lead the finest winter-wheat brands in the 

 most fastidious consuming markets of the East. This flour is made from 

 disengaged uncrushed middlings; the flour-dust that is unavoidably 

 produced in the grinding is of low grade. This process has been intro- 

 duced as yet to only a limited extent in other regions. It is already 

 used to some extent with manifest advantage, in milling winter 

 wheat. It has utilized the cheaper spring wheat and rendered it avail- 

 able for high flour production. It is a leading salient fact in the grain 



