CLOVER CULTURE. 87 



from Oilman, Hancock County, Iowa, and one from Man- 

 chester, Delaware County, Iowa. In the Manchester case the 

 barn was the property of Mr. I. G. Clute, and was insured in 

 the Farmers' Insurance Co., of Cedar Rapids, Iowa. The 

 adjuster of the company makes the following statement in the 

 Cedar Rapids, (Iowa) Gazette: 



The barn was 60x100 feet, the mow beiug 40x90, and about 30 feet deep, 

 containing nearly 500 tons of hay. Barly in haying season green clover had 

 been put in one bent, and ever since it had been heating until at last it took 

 fire by spontaneous combustion. When discovered, there was in three 

 chimney holes, as the neighbors called them, a blue blaze springing out over 

 each, some two or three feet under the roof. The fire was located far be- 

 neath at the depth of thirty feet. . . . This blue blaze was gas, and the 

 depths beneath were a gas well on a small scale. One hundred and three 

 neighbors collected to fight the fire and worked two days and nights to save 

 the hay. Thirteen out of the one hundred and three succumbed to the effects 

 of the gas and had to stop work, one being so violently ill as a result that 

 he is not likely to recover. 



We have from time to time received accounts of the spon- 

 taneous combustion of clover hay, but the above embraces 

 nearly every distinct feature. The first phenomenon is ex- 

 cessive heating in the center of the mow or stack; then the 

 formation of funnels through which gas escapes at a tempera- 

 ture high enough to cook eggs in a few minutes, corroding at 

 the same time the shell and the lining or membrane which 

 encloses the egg, sometimes followed by flame and sometimes 

 not. Instances often occur in which the combustion has been 

 arrested, and in the heart of the stack may be found a mass 

 of charcoal. 



We sent a sample of this charcoal taken from the mow of 

 Mr. C. H. Seager, of Gilman, Iowa, whose barn was burned 

 in the fall of 1889, to Prof. Sanborn, asking his opinion of 

 this new evidence of spontaneous combustion, and we quote a 

 part of his reply, as follows: 



* "All preconceived views of the matter are puerile before facts. The 

 charred material looks much like matter burned in an air insufficient for 

 full combustion. Charring- does not imply flame, but rather the con- 

 trary. The heating 1 of green food in the mow is due to a ferment and 

 not to direct oxidation in the old sense of the word, or in the sense that 

 wood is burned. Will the ferments (low plant life) thus produce self-de- 

 struction or carry fermentation forward until it becomes oxidation? Fer- 

 mentation ceases with loss of moisture, and flame will not occur where 

 it is abundant. I confess I never saw such charred material as you have 

 forwarded to me. While it does not follow that combustion need be the 

 result, I confess to the belief that the circumstances do not warrant the 

 denial of the possibility of it, at least by me, with the evidence before 

 me. I hope that you will obtain the views of the highest biological 

 authority in the country, for the question is an interesting and impor- 

 tant one." 



