STOCK-KILLING PLANTS 



5 



of peculiar appearance, stating that it had been taken from the stomach of 

 the horse belonging to Joseph W. Messick of Milford, Del., which had 

 been eating crimson clover, and the death of which was ascribed to the 

 ball formed from the branched hairs and fibers of the calyces of the crim- 

 son clover flowers (Fig. i). Another man, Mr. Alexander Ryan, a few 

 days before the above report had been filed, had lost a horse from which 

 two similar balls had been taken. Later another letter from an entirely 



FIG. 2. Crimson-clover hair balls taken from horses which had died from the 

 presence of these masses in the alimentary tracts. The larger one is the largest of six 

 taken from a horse which had been fed on crimson-clover hay for 12 years before his 

 death. Horses have died within a few months after commencing to eat crimson clover. 

 The smaller hair ball is as large as a regulation baseball. (After Westgate, J. M.: Crim- 

 son clover: Utilization. Farmers' Bulletin, 579, 1914, p. 6.) 



different locality, Kellar, Va., was received by the Department written by 

 B. W. Mears & Son accompanied by a ball taken from the horse imme- 

 diately after death. The statement was made that the horse had worked 

 as usual without any signs of disease up to the time of its fatal illness which 

 lasted five hours with sharp pain before death. Another ball, similar to 

 that taken from the stomach, was found in the large intestine. Several 

 other horses in the vicinity had died the preceding week, all apparently 



