6 BULLETIN 48, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 



The corn in car No. 2 did not show any appreciable increase in 

 temperature until May 4, at which time the temperature of the corn 

 was 61° F., an increase of 7 degrees over the record of the previous 

 day. This increase in temperature was probably influenced to some 

 extent by the air temperature, the mean daily air temperature having 

 increased from 52° on May 2 to 02° F. on May 3. The tempera- 

 ture of the corn in this car at the end of the experiment on May 11 

 was 81° F. In a few more days it would undoubtedly have been hot 

 and sour. 



The corn in car No. 3 did not show any great variation in tempera- 

 ture until May 6, at which time the average temperature of the 

 corn was 60°, as compared with 54° F. at the beginning of the 

 experiment. At the termination of the experiment, when car No. 3 

 was unloaded the average temperature of the corn in that car was 

 82.5°, as compared with an average of 84° F. for the corn in car 

 No. 2. The corn containing 17.4 per cent of moisture in car No. 4 

 and the artificially dried corn in car No. 5, containing 16.7 per cent 

 of moisture, did not show any marked increase in temperature 

 throughout this experiment. 



It will be noticed that the temperature of the corn in the cars was 

 influenced to a limited extent by the temperature of the atmosphere ; 

 that is, when there was a sudden drop in the temperature of the 

 air, as on May 5, the corn also decreased slightly in temperature, 

 except the cars of corn that had begun to deteriorate. The heat 

 generated during the process of deterioration of the corn concealed 

 any influence exerted by the temperature of the air. 



SECOND EXPERIMENT, DECEMBER 24, 1910, TO JANUARY 20, 1911. 



CORN LOADED INTO CARS. 



On December 24, 1910, four lots of corn, each lot consisting of 

 approximately 2,400 bushels, were selected at the elevators of the 

 Pennsylvania Railroad Co., at Baltimore, Md. The corn was 

 selected according to moisture content, and each of the four lots 

 was first thoroughly mixed in the elevator before loading into 

 cars. Two cars were loaded from each lot, one being forwarded 

 from Baltimore to Chicago and return, over the Pennsylvania lines 

 via the Fort Wayne route, while the duplicate car of each lot was 

 held on the track in the Canton yards at Baltimore. Eight cars 

 consequently were included in the experiment, in order to study 

 the effect of atmospheric conditions on the shrinkage in weight and 

 rate, of deterioration. The cars held on the track at Baltimore were 

 weighed, and temperature records were taken on the same days that 



