State Convention—What Wheat to Raise. 347 
time, and it is that portion of the berry that lies close to the barn 
that makes the patent flour. 
Mr. Wood: I had no opportunity of learning the facts to my 
satisfaction before preparing this paper which I read to-day, but 
since I have been in Madison, I called on Governor Washburn to 
learn some of these facts, for I knew he was the very fountain 
from which we could get information on this subject. He informed 
me that they have a way of regrinding the middlings made in the 
ordinary process, so that out of a grist of ten bushels, you may get 
twenty to thirty pounds of patent flour. 
I asked Governor Washburn this question: Suppose we had five 
hundred bushels of good, hard, flinty wheat, what proportion of pat¬ 
ent flour would be obtained? He said, from five hundred bushels, or 
enough to make one hundred barrels of flour; thirty barrels would 
be the highest grade of patent flour; about fifty-five barrels would 
be a good grade of common flour, and fifteen barrels would be in¬ 
ferior; although it was so small an amount, there was still a great 
profit made by having this thirty barrels of exceedingly valuable 
flour to sell. 
Question: Did you understand there would be eleven pounds 
to the bushel of the patent flour? 
Mr. Wood: Three per cent, of flour. The process as given by 
Mr. Anderson is correct. It is double grinding; the first grinding 
coarse, then cleansing it and regrinding. 
Mr. Whiting: Mr. Anderson said that the patent flour was ta¬ 
ken out by suction. I understand it to be the reverse of that. 
When the wheat is ground it passes through a sieve, and the re- 
■ 
fuse is drawn off, leaving the patent flour. 
Mr. Houston: It runs down a spout, and there is a suction which 
takes up the fine bran you call middlings; and it then runs down 
over another pair of stones, and is ground over again. If they do 
not suck that fine bran out when they come to grind it again, they 
would cut that up so fine that it would run through the bolt and 
the flower would be specky. 
Mr. Whiting: Did you ask Governor Washburn what the real 
proportion of the two better grades of flour bear to flour that was 
manufactured by the old process? 
Mr. Wood: I said to him, can you grind by the new process the 
soft wheat into desirable grades of flour? He said the flour made 
