"The development of the milling industry in this city has been so intimately connected with the growth and prosperity of the city itself, that the steps by which the art of milling has reached its present high state of perfection are worthy of note, especially as Minneapolis may rightly claim the honor of having brought the improvements, which have within the last decade so thoroughly revolutionized the art of making flour, first into public notice, and of having contributed the largest share of capital and inventive skill to their full development. So much is this the case that the cluster of mills around the Falls of St. Anthony is to-day looked upon as the head-center of the milling industry not only of this country, but of the world. An exception to this broad statement may possibly be made in favor of the city of Buda Pest, in Austro-Hungary, from the leading mills in which the millers in this country have obtained many valuable ideas. To the credit of American millers and millwrights it must, however, be said that they have in all cases improved upon the information they have thus obtained. "To rightly understand the change that has taken place in milling methods during the last ten years, it is necessary to compare the old way with the new, and to observe wherein they differ. From the days of Oliver Evans, the first American mechanic to make any improvement in milling machinery, until 1870, there was, if we may except some grain cleaning or smut machines, no very strongly marked advance in milling machinery or in the methods of manufacturing flour. It is true that the reel covered with finely-woven silk bolting cloth had taken the place of the muslin or woolen covered hand sieve, and that the old granite millstones have given place to the French burr; but these did not affect the essential parts of the _modus operandi_, although the quality of the product was, no doubt, materially improved. The processes employed in all the mills in the United States ten years ago were identical, or very nearly so, with those in use in the Brandywine Mills in Evans's day. They were very simple, and may be divided into two distinct operations. "First. Grinding (literally) the wheat. "Second. Bolting or separating the flour or interior portion of the berry from the outer husk, or bran. It may seem to some a rash assertion, but this primitive way of making flour is still in vogue in over one-half of the mills of the United States. This does not, however, affect the truth of the statement that the greater part of the flour now made in this country is made on an entirely different and vastly-improved system, which has come to be known to the trade as the new process.