fourth, regrinding and rebolting the middlings to produce the higher grade, or 'patent' flour. This higher grade flour drove the best winter wheat flours out of the Eastern markets, and placed milling in Minnesota upon a firm basis. The development of the 'new process' cannot be claimed by any one man. Hundreds of millers all over the country have contributed to its advance, but the millers of Minneapolis have always taken the lead. "Within the past two or three years what may be distinctively called the 'new process' has, in the mills of Minneapolis and some few other leading mills in the country, been giving place to a new system, or rather, a refinement of the processes above described. This latest system is known to the trade as the 'gradual reduction' or high-grinding system, as the 'new process' is the medium high-grinding system, and the old way is the low or close grinding system. In using the gradual reduction in making flour the millstones are abandoned, except for finishing some of the inferior grades of flour, and the work is done by means of grooved and plain rollers, made of chilled iron or porcelain. In some cases disks of chilled iron, suitably furrowed, are used, and in others concave mills, consisting of a cylinder running against a concave plate. In Minneapolis the chilled iron rolls take the precedence of all other means. "The system of gradual reduction is much more complicated than either of those which preceded it; but the results obtained are a marked advance over the 'new process.' The percentage of high-grade flour is increased, several grades of different degrees of excellence being produced, and the yield is also greater from a given quantity of wheat. The system consists in reducing the wheat to flour, not at one operation, as in the old system, nor in two grindings, as in the 'new process,' but in several successive reductions, four, five, or six, as the case may be. The wheat is first passed through a pair of corrugated chilled iron rollers, which merely split it open along the crease of the berry, liberating the dirt which lies in the crease so that it can be removed by bolting. A very small percentage of low-grade flour is also made in this reduction. After passing through what is technically called a 'scalping reel' to remove the dirt and flour, the broken wheat is passed through a second set of corrugated rollers, by which it is further broken up, and then passes through a second separating reel, which removes the flour and middlings. This operation is repeated successively until the flour portion of the berry is entirely removed from the bran, the necessary separation being made after each reduction. The middlings from the several reductions are passed through the purifiers, and, after being purified, are reduced to flour by successive reductions on smooth iron or porcelain rollers. In some cases, as stated above, iron disks and concave mills are substituted for the roller mill, but the