December, '11] HINDS: CARBON disulphide explosion 533 



for the storage of hay. All partitions were made of matched flooring. 

 Several strong rooms were thus constructed capable of holding several 

 thousand bushels of corn. This place, therefore, offered ideal condi- 

 tions for the control of corn infesting insects by carbon disulphide 

 fumigation and treatment here during the two years preceding had 

 given very satisfactory results. 



Throughout the South there is a common custom of storing corn 

 with the shucks on. Most farmers believe that this protects the ear 

 from insect attack to some extent although we doubt whether this is 

 really the case. It is a common idea that the best method of handling 

 corn is to allow it to stand in the field until after one or two hard frosts 

 have occurred, then to break the ear from the stalk during a rainy 

 spell or while the shuck is real wet and store this wet corn immediately. 

 Many farmers know that in large masses such wet corn is likely to 

 heat and they seem to understand that the heating, occasionally at 

 least, is quite effective in destroying insect life in the heated corn. 

 So far as we have been able to learn very many of those who have fol- 

 lowed both of these ideas have still lost their corn where any consid- 

 erable quantity was carried in storage until May or June of the follow- 

 ing year. It seems that a certain combination of conditions nmst exist 

 to produce a degree of heat which will be sufficient to destroy insect life 

 and that these conditions are not sufficiently understood so that the 

 desired results can be attained with any degree of regularity and 

 certainty. 



In the case which we are considering a large force of workmen was 

 put to harvesting the corn during a rainy period which made it impos- 

 sible for them to continue their regular work of picking and ginning 

 cotton. Thus in a single day, fully 1,200 bushels of corn in the shuck 

 which was unusually wet were placed in one mass in this concrete build- 

 ing in a room containing about 2,400 cubic feet. One week after this 

 corn was stored the carbon disulphide treatment was applied as the 

 weevils were found to be very numerous in the corn at that time. 

 The mass of corn was known to be hot but the owner had no suspicion 

 that this heat was sufficient to be an element of danger in connection 

 with the carbon disulphide treatment. The liquid was passed into the 

 room and distributed over the corn by two negroes, the room being so 

 full of corn that they had barely space to work around between the floor 

 above and the top of the corn. Naturally the heat of the mass evap- 

 orated the carbon disulphide with unusual rapidity and when 30 U)s. 

 of the liquid had been distributed, the vapor became so dense that the 

 workmen were forced to retire. The door opening to the outside was 

 immediately locked and the owner with one helper started pasting 

 paper over the cracks around the door, which is about 3 x 'i}^ feet and 



