"The problem which ten years since confronted the millers of this city was how to obtain from the wheat which they had to grind a white, clear flour, and to so increase the yield as to leave some margin for profit. The first step in the solution of this problem was the invention by E. N. La Croix of the machine which has since been called the purifier, which removed the dirt and light impurities from the refuse middlings in the same manner that dust and chaff are removed from wheat by a fanning mill. The middlings thus purified were then reground, and the result was a much whiter and cleaner flour than it had been possible to obtain under the old process of low close grinding. This flour was called 'patent' or 'fancy,' and at once took a high position in the market. The first machine built by La Croix was immediately improved by George T. Smith, and has since then been the subject of numberless variations, changes, and improvements; and over the principles embodied in its construction there has been fought one of the longest and most bitter battles recorded in the annals of patent litigation in this country. The purifier is to-day the most important machine in use in the manufacture of flour in this country, and may with propriety be called the corner-stone of new process milling. The earliest experiments in its use in this country were made in what was then known as the 'big mill' in this city, owned by Washburn, Stephens & Co., and now known as the Washburn Mill B. "The next step in the development of the new process, also originating in Minneapolis, was the abandonment of the old system of cracking the millstone, and substituting in its stead the use of smooth surfaces on the millstones, thus in a large measure doing away with the abrasion of the bran, and raising the quality of the flour produced at the first grinding. So far as we know, Mr. E. R. Stephens, a Minneapolis miller, then employed in the mill owned by Messrs. Pillsbury, Crocker & Fish, and now a member of the prominent milling firm of Freeman & Stephens, River Falls, Wisconsin, was the first to venture on this innovation. He also first practiced the widening of the furrows in the millstones and increasing their number, thus adding largely to the amount of middlings made at the first grinding, and raising the percentage of patent flour. He was warmly supported by Amasa K. Ostrander, since deceased, the founder and for a number of years the editor of the _North-Western Miller_, a trade newspaper. The new ideas were for a time vigorously combated by the millers, but their worth was so plain that they were soon adopted, not only in Minneapolis, but by progressive millers throughout the country. The truth was the 'new process' in its entirety, which may be summarized in four steps--first, grinding or, more properly, granulating the berry; second, bolting or separating the 'chop' or meal into first flour, middlings, and bran; third, purifying the middlings,