We sometimes forget how much better we have things than our foremothers did.

How To Produce Flour

From Jone Johnson Lewis,Your Guide to Women's History.

An 1884 description of producing flour for use in baking bread, cakes, or pastry. From Boston Cookery School Cook Book, Mrs. D. A. Lincoln, 1884.

Difficulty: Hard

Time Required: Long

Here's How:

1.    Choose wheat grown in the Red River region.

2.    Break off the germinal point of each grain by using "ending stones."

3.    Send grain through corrugated iron rollers, with shallow spiral grooves and rounded ridges.

4.    Crush between these rollers, two sets grooved in opposite directions.

5.    Separate the middlings (starchy parts) from the bran or tailings.

6.    Discard the bran.

7.    Pass the middlings through ten bolting-cloths.

8.    Pass the resulting flour through finer corrugating machines to make various grades: fine, super-fine, fancy.

9.    Use the flour to make bread, cakes, or pastry.

More How To's from your Guide To Women's History
http://womenshistory.about.com/cs/ht.htm

I will have to admit i have never ground my own flour.  Can anyone compare the process now to the process then for me??