The Princeton union. [volume] (Princeton, Minn.) 1876-1976, 1879-04-09
THE COCHRANE PATENT
"Gath" ReUie,cs the Case Of the Patentees
against the Minnesota 1EiIlers, and Con-
cIasdes that the Supreme Court Was


Duped. ss
[Cincinnati Enquirer. ....."
You have probably not seen clear a.
count of the great upsetting just given b
George Harding to the great millin
monopoly, with its headquarters in Obi
and the district of Columbia. This cam
off in the circuit court of the United State
west of the Mississippi river, and the decis
ion was only given March 18th. The monoE
oily took the name of ''The American Mid
dlings Purifier Company" and had sue'
John A. Christian, of Minnesota, and tn
Atlantic Middling company of st. Louis, TO
alleged infringement of patent. The in
fringement essentially consisted in atmos
pheric boiling of flour middlings. despair
of making this plain to you, except in the
way of conversation. Let me put to the
lawyer, therefore, some questions
''What is grain of wheat?"
''A grain of wheat is berry with soft
foury mass in the center and harder coatings
The center gives SO. per cent. of the super
fine flour, and is divided into numerous
cells, divided by gluten, starch and cement
ing matter The problem of grinding con-
sists in separating the interior mass from
the coatings, which constitute the bran, and
pulverizing it. The hull ought to be pulver-
lied as little as possible, while the interior
mass is we'll pulverized, because when you
come to bolt the floor you want the bran to
be in larger particles and not to 90 through
the cloth. Now, winter wheat, which has a
rough wooden husk, is easily separated; but
the spring wheat further North has brittle
hull, which pulverizes almost like the flour
itself. Consequently, the Minnesota flour
was specked, while the st. Louis grain
higher price. The present lawsuit arose
from the introduction OF French machines
into Minnesota by which they reground the
middlings and produced even better article
of flour than St. Louis.'
GLOW do you define middlings?'
"Our definition in that respect came down
from Oliver Evans, who ground flour on the
Brandywine fifty years ago, and wrote about
1t. After your flour has gone through the
millstones, you want to sift it Tor bolt it),
which is done by boiling cloth attached to
a reel; the cloth has progressively coarser
mesh, and the meal or coarse ground wheat,
lying on the cloth, sends the finest -four
through the top, and as the flour mass goes
onward it drops coarser; the coarse part is
again taken up to the head of the cloth and
sent onward a second time. Now, there is
still something left after this double boiling,
, and it retains the name of meal. The finest
of this meal is called "middlings;'' the next
coarser quality is called 'sshipstuff," and the
third quality is called "shorts" and ssbran.''
Now, you must see, that as machinery ad-
vanced and our wheat increased in quantity,
h0o 1ooiro Ia r. hoo IN a. e.
Toned slow boiling operation. It was gener-
ally believed that atmospheric pressure would
do it. The Americans and the French both
set to work at this.''
AMERICANS AT sTEAM-BoLT1NG.
(which was the American patent that
drew most attention."
ut was called the Cogswell & McKiernan
patent, and was granted June ~, 1860 A
blast of air was introduced into a hollow
shaft surrounded by zinc box perforated
with small holes. The air escaping went up
crooked chimney, whose elbows formed
eddies and let the flour fall back into the
reel-chest. This patent was sold to William
F. Cochrane and in the summer of 1861 he
put up mill on that patent near Spring
field, Ohio, for the Warder family. Some
trouble occurred, and after many improve
ments and corrections the whole thing was
laid aside, somewhere about 1868. It died
right there and for ten years not ghost of
it fingered around. Yet that patent became
the basis of the greatest milling business of
our times.''
GLOW was that?"
''It was accomplished through the sur
render and reissue of the patent, taking ad-
vantage of the patent Office at Washington.
This was not done until the French machines
ho1 011,{Jo
nesota. About 1860 they introduced spring
wheat into Minnesota, and the CROP Increased
rapidly, until it was nearly 100000 bushels
in 1868, and more than $4,000 900
bushels in 1877. Yet the brittle hull
of the Minnesota wheat would get into the
flour, and could not be bolted out by the old
processes. Consequently, though richer in
gluten than the st. Louis flour, it held an in
ferlor place in the market, and was used by
bakers only, not by families. In that con-
dition of things a Frenchman named LIE
Croix, who knew about the system of grind
ing spring wheat in France, told his neigh
bors, the great millers around Minneapolis,
to try the French machines. Consequently,
Mr.. George H. Christian sent out to France
and imported what are called the Cabanese
machines, first patented in April, 1856.
After about one years experiments with
these machines III his mill. and constructing
others like them, Mr.. Christian fully estab.
lished the character of Minnesota flour in
1871. It was done by what is called the
middlings purifying process. It brought
from 81 to So more in the Eastern markets,
and 81 barrel more than the St. Louis
flour. The effect was immense, when it
suddenly occurred to some sharp fellows
that the old Coggswell & Cochrane patent
should be revived and good thing made of
it,
SETTING UP PATENT JOB.
"Who were the persons interested in this
performance?''
"Mr. William Warder and Mr.. Rodney
Mason, in 1873 and 1874, entered into an
understanding to obtain the greater part of
the interest in the old Cochrane patent, and
then reissue it so as to cover the new pro-
cess. Middlings had never been ground in
to superfne flour here. Cochrane readily
agreed to give one-half his interest to Mason !
which was one-fourth of the entire patent
for obtaining the reissue and prosecuting
suits under the reissue. The thing was then
so worthless that William Warder had got
fourth of it for nothing. These three men
-Cochrane, Mason and Warder-slipped off
tn Wouhip or1 oo.oo;o@ol I'LL,