The Anaconda standard. [volume] (Anaconda, Mont.) 1889-1970, 1899-02-05
OLD FASHIONED MILLS.
Driven Out of the Field by Modern Mill
ing Machinery.

ing Machinery.
| From the Northeast Grocer.
"Massa Ned, de meals done gone, Miss
Belle tole me to tell your
| At this the colonel scratched his head
meditatively for it always seemed to him
as if domestic wants came directly in OPP
| position to what he wished or had to do
Jake waited in silence, for he knew, as
all old house servants did, that it was
safer to shut up when he seed de mars
ter done scratch his head Without corn
meal there would be no batter bread,
hoecake or corn waffies. and SO Jake was
instructed to take two bushels of corn
| and pack it to Mistah Johnston's mill"
As I never missed one of these trips,
soon three of u.s. the corn. Jake and my
self were across old Biily's back, slowly
making our way to Miller Johnson's
Billy was the family mule fully % years
old. and as cunning as he was good ma
tured and privileged on account of tlong
service and for once having saved the
coloneHs life.
Six miles. on a beautiful summer morn
ing, passed only too quickly, and soon we
were at our destination.
Such crude. rickety old structure as
the mill was! One story high, with its
huge water wheel on the outside taking
its force from the little stream which
ran into the buckets, making it's song
of dip Dip" an answering chorus to the
rattle of the hopper as it shook the corn
between the two small burr stones
No perfume of the sweetest flowers
has ever seemed SO delightful as that
which came from grinding the white
flint corn in this little old mill in st.
Helena parish more than 40 years ago
Time is our life's Kaleidoscope, and
memory is the glass that turns the vari-
Gus pictures before us, and as l sit in
quiet solitude the vision of my boyhood s
visit to the mill in Louisiana is contracted
with one seen 90 years later.
During the centennial year 7 visited
one of the Oldest corn-meal mills in Della
ware, one that took it's power from the
picturesque and historic Brandywine
The gentle slope of country on either side
of the stream, broken by wooded ravines,
gave a charming setting, which is not
dimmed by anything I have seen since
The old brick mill. just at the edge of the
river gave the link between nature and
mans work, that told its own story. ,
Here many years ago it was the pride
OF the state, and as years went by and
it descended from uncle to nephew, then
ia Their to son, it brought them fame
prominence and wealth and all the old
precepts and time honored methods of
conducting the business were adhered to
| with jealous care. At the time of which
l write the brick kilns in which the corn
was dried dated back almost to the first
construction of the mill and the sweet
odor of the toasting grain made your ap-
| proach always pleasant one.
Who has not heard of the far-famed
| Brandywine meal of years gone by? While
| now it is only a remembrance, for not a
vestige of the old buildings nor the meth
| DDS not even a kiln is left to mark the
| memory of those whose brains first Gre
ated it. The business motto of to-day
seems to be quantity of output rather
| than the slower methods that insured
quality and favor and lasting reputation.
Is 1t that expansion in business, as we'll
| as in governmental possessions, has
seized upon our people? Are we to assume
that all methods, principles and business
action that brought us strength and
wealth in the past are now to be dis
carded in the scramble for control and
prominence? Is all individuality to be
wiped out and nothing but the octopus
of possession to be our future? If this
be true, the cost had best be counted be-
| fore 1T is too late