Dodge City times., 1884-04-03
The Cheerful Experience Of an Inventor
u Milling Machinery.

"Bran Is not what it Used to be- 4
New York miller said. pIung;ne hi:
hand into a bin full of what looked like
hakf dark-brown meal. ..It used eu
H,s.he good feed for cattle. Now it is
almost like sawdust. Bran. you know,
,, is the outer shell of grain of wheat.
When wheat is ground the interior pull
verizes into flour. The shell doesn't. The
whole product Is sifte1 in silk sieves
called reels, and the -four passes out
through the meshes of the silk. The
bran which breaks but does not powder
remains. In the good old days we hear
about, bran was used for feed. 1t was
good feed. too. because quantity of
flour adhered to it even with the most
careful sitting or bolting, as it is called. "
doesn't the -four adhere to the
bran in the new process of grind.ng?"
= ''Of course it does, but a man in the
western part of the State, having the
love of riches and a knowledge of patent
laws before his eyes, invented a ma
chine for taking the -four out of the
bran. 1t consisted of an upright
cylinder of fine wire cloth, two feet in
diameter by four feet in length. prop
.erly supported by frame on the out
side. Inside of the cylinder were placed
hair brushes about as long as the
cylinder. They were secured to a
central shaft by arms long enough to
Make the brush come out close to the
wire cloth. They were made adjust.
able so they could be showed out as they
wore away. They were revolved at
from two hundred and fifty to four hun
dred revolutions minute. The bran
was fed in between the brushes and the
wire cloth and the specks of flour were
rubbed off and out through the cloth in
jiffy. A wooden case kept the stuff
from flying all over the mill and a spout
conveyed it to bin. An automatic
knocker kept it from choking up be-
tween the case and the wire cloth.
After time it was apparent that some
kinds OF bran made the case swell. and
they made it an ironclad machine, and
there it IS complete as a bran duster."
'Poor sort of flour came from it, one
would think"
1T was not genuine sea spray, of
course, but it was flour instead of chick
en- teed."
Ibid the inventor spend his few re-
years overcoming the prejudice
of millers, and die of a broken heart
and too much bran duster?'
"He didn't. He built his machine in
as great numbers as limited means and
a lack of sympathy among fellow
tOwnsmen would permit. He took it
to millers near about and said: This
is good machine. 1t will pay for it.
self in about six months, and will last
for years. Then the miller would feel
sorry for the enthusiast and say he
didn't need any new machinery. The !
had expected that and would !
say: Il know what am about. l will
put the machine in the mill at my own
expense if you will send to me all the
lOur you get from it during years
work by running all your bran through |
,he machine. I'll pay the frei ight on the
Jour. You can send the flour to me at |
he end of each month That looked |
Ike fair proposition, and the miller
,ook it up every time. By and by the
machine was in place. and the bran was
yoing in gray and coming out black,
While a small stream of flour was run
hing away to bin with persistency
hat in 4 day or two became alarming
% the miller"
"Why?''
because it made such heap in the
lin. The miller calculated that the
machine over in the corner was making
} pound of flour for every bushel OF
rain that ran through the mill stones.
Where the miller turned out twenty-five
r one hundred barrels of flour day,
hat was quite a heap. A little figuring
howed that the flour at the end of the
month would pay for the machine
"How much in cash was that?"
"From two hundred to five hundred
oliars. according to the capacity.
When he saw that he had agreed to pay
welve prices for the machine he began
D pay attention to a postscript to the
ontract which said that if the miller
7anted to cash up inside of thirty davs
e could do so. He cashed up every
me."
The inventor had it all his own way
t once '-E a- :.
"Not exactly. There are half dozen
arieties Of the machine, owned by diff
,rent manufacturers. and there is COM
etition in the trade. Still, the man |
I'll you of is a capitalist instead of
age worker, and that's more than
lost inventors have accomplished" . !;
|. Y. San. ae