After the stirring events of the Civil and Indian wars Minnesota resumed its peaceful ways, and continued to grow and prosper for a long series of years, excepting the period from 1873 to 1876, when it was afflicted with the plague of grasshoppers. Possessed of the many advantages that nature has bestowed upon it, there was nothing else for it to do. The state, as far as it was then developed, was exclusively agricultural, and wheat was its staple production, although almost every character of grain and vegetable can be produced in exceptional abundance. Potatoes of the first quality were among its earliest exports, but that crop is not sufficiently valuable or portable to enter extensively into the catalogue of its productions, beyond the needs of domestic use.
INTRODUCTION OF THE NEW PROCESS OF MILLING WHEAT.
The wheat raised in Minnesota was, and always has been, of the spring variety, and up to about the year 1874 was regarded in the markets of the world as an inferior article of grain, when compared with the winter wheat of states further south, and the flour made from it was also looked upon as much less valuable than its competitor, made from winter wheat. The state labored under this disability in realizing upon its chief product for many years, both in the wheat, and the flour made from it. Many mills were erected at the Falls of St. Anthony, with a very great output of flour, which, with the lumber manufactured at that point, composed the chief export of the state. The process of grinding wheat was the old style, of an upper and nether millstone, which left the flour of darker color, less nutritious, and less desirable than that from the winter wheat made in the same way. About the year 1871 it was discovered that a new process of manufacturing flour was in operation on the Danube and at Budapest. Mr. George H. Christian, a partner of Gov. C. C. Washburn in the milling business at Minneapolis, studied the invention, which consisted of crushing the wheat by means of rollers made of steel and porcelain, instead of grinding it, as of old, to which the French had added a new process of eliminating the bran specs from the crushed product, by means of a flat oscillating screen or bolt with an upward blast of air through it, upon which the crushed product was placed and cleansed of all bran impurities. In 1871 Gen. C. C. Washburn and Mr. Christian introduced this French invention into their mills in Minneapolis, and derived from it great advantage in the appearance and value of their flour. This was called a "middlings purifier." In 1874 they introduced the roller crushing process, and the result was, that the hard spring wheat returned a flour superior to the product of the winter wheat, and placed Minnesota upon more than an equality with the best flour-producing states in the Union. This process has been universally adopted throughout the United States in all milling localities, with great advantage to that industry.
It is a rather curious fact that, as all our milling knowledge was originally inherited from England, which country is very sluggish in the adoption of new methods, it was not until our improved flour reached that country that the English millers accepted the new method, and have since acted upon it. It is a case of the pupil instructing his preceptor.
I regard the introduction of these improvements in the manufacture of flour into this state as of prime importance to its growth and increase of wealth and strength. It is estimated by the best judges that the value of our spring wheat was increased at least twenty per cent by their adoption, and when we consider that the state produced, in 1898, 78,418,000 bushels of wheat, its magnitude can be better appreciated. It formerly required five bushels of wheat to make a barrel of flour; under the new process it only takes four bushels and seven pounds to make a barrel of the same weight—196 pounds.
The only record that is kept of flour in Minnesota is for the two points of Minneapolis and the head of the lakes; the latter including Duluth, and Superior, in Wisconsin. The output of Minneapolis for the crop year of 1898-99 was 15,164,881 barrels, and for Duluth-Superior for the same period 2,637,035 barrels. The estimate for the whole state is 25,000,000 barrels. These figures are taken from the Northwestern Miller, a reliable publication in Minneapolis.
The credit of having introduced the Hungarian and French processes into Minnesota is due primarily to the late Gov. C. C. Washburn of La Crosse, Wis., who was greatly aided by his partner at the time, Mr. George H. Christian of Minneapolis.
While I am convinced that the credit of first having introduced these valuable inventions into Minnesota belongs to Gov. C. C. Washburn and his partner Mr. George H. Christian, I am in justice bound to add that Gov. John S. Pillsbury and the late Mr. Charles A. Pillsbury, who were large and enterprising millers at Minneapolis, owning the Excelsior Mills, immediately after its introduction adopted the process, and put it into their mills, and by employing American skilled artizans and millers to set up and operate their machinery, succeeded in securing the first absolutely perfect automatic mill of the new kind in the country. General Washburn, having imported Hungarian millers to start and operate his experimental mills, found himself somewhat handicapped by their inefficiency and sluggishness in adopting American ways and customs.