The Manitoba Agricultural Museum’s collection features a hand powered stone flour mill which was donated to the Museum by John Clark of Brandon in 1960. Mr Clark indicated the mill was brought to Manitoba in 1880 from Ontario. The mill which consists of a very heavy table with the millstones set into one end with the other end of the table forming a well to hold loose grain or perhaps a grain bag.
The photo shows the top or runner stone. The centre of the runner stone has a round hole cut all the way through it. Under the runner is another stone, the bedstone. The bedstone has no centre hole . Into the working faces of both the runner and bedstone are cut a pattern of grooves. There are a number of deep grooves called furrows that run from the centre of the stone out to the edge of the stone. From each furrow run a number of shallower grooves called cracking grooves. These grooves run to the edge of the stone. The pattern of grooves in a set of millstones should, in theory, match each other. Millstones should not be touching each other but be separated very slightly from one another. This produces better flour and reduces wear on the stones.
There is a handle visible on the runner stone which is used to turn the runner. While the runner stone was turned, grain was trickled through the hole. The furrows attempt to move the grain to the outside of the stones while the runner is being turned. In doing so, grain is feed to the cracking grooves. In theory, as the cracking grooves in the top stone turn over the grooves in the bottom stone, a scissoring action takes place and the grain is broken up into flour.
As this is an old and rare artifact, no attempt was made to remove the runner to examine whether furrows and cracking grooves were cut into the faces of the stones in this mill. The runner turns easily so it appears the runner stone is separated from the bedstone in some fashion. If the runner was resting on the bedstone it would be much harder to turn. It appears a paddle of some sort was run around the stone on an ongoing basis to push the flour to the outlet visible on the side of the mill.
Examining the table it is evident that it was rebuilt at some point before it arrived at the Museum. The well area is built from 3x4inch material and the area around the stone is built with what appears to be planed material. Most cut lumber before 1900 was rough cut or unplanned.
Red Fife wheat was in great demand in Manitoba in 1880. Red Fife had a very high gluten content compared to other wheat varieties of the time. This high gluten content made for a superior loaf of bread. Manitoba, for reasons of climate, produced Red Fife with higher gluten content than Red Fife produced further south. However millstones had problems in milling Red Fife as a stone mill tended to crush Red Fife rather than cutting it. As well, the millstones built up heat when milling hard wheats which damaged the gluten in these wheats . By 1880, steel technology had progressed to the point where steel rollers were possible. The faces of steel rollers were covered with sharp ridges which basically chipped the kernel of wheat apart and did not build up gluten damaging heat. Steel roller flour mills quickly appeared in the 1880s to process the rapidly expanding acreage of Red Fife wheat in Manitoba.
This stone mill, however crude the flour produced by it, was still a useful tool to have if you were pioneering on the Manitoba Prairie in 1880. Money was always an issue and milling wheat into flour would save the homesteader money.
The Manitoba Agricultural Museum is now open year round. Between the tractors, machinery, buildings and other artifacts of Manitoba’s pioneer agricultural era, an informative day can be spent at the Museum. For more information, the Museum’s upgraded website is at http://www.ag-museum.com/
