AN'BURY, a disease to which turnips are liable, and which often proves of serious importance to farmers, destroying the crop of entire fields. It is sometimes called club root, because of the knobs or tubercular excrescences which form upon the root. The root, instead of swelling into one turnip of good size, generally becomes divided into a number of parts, each in some small degree swelling separately by itself; whence the popular name, fingers and toes. The growth of the plant is arrested; the root becomes woody; the excrescences rot, and emit most offensive effluvia, which, however, appear peculiarly attractive to insects of various kinds; and, accordingly, eggs and maggots in abundance are soon to be found in them. It has been very generally supposed that these insects, or some of them, are the cause of the disease; but the truth seems rather to be that they are attracted by the diseased state of the plant. A. has been erroneously confounded with the excrescences, each containing a small grub, which are frequent on the roots of turnips, as on those of cabbages, and many other cruciferous plants, although these also sometimes effect the destruction of the plant. The true nature and cause of
the disease are not yet well known. Much attention has been devoted to the subject; and premiums have been offered in connection with it by the highland and agricultural society of Scotland; but hitherto, without eliciting any certain or satisfactory informa tion. It appears probable that the disease is in some measure owing to peculiarities of soil, or of manure, ankt to the too frequent repetition of turnip-crops upon the same field. A much greater frequency of repetition, however, can be safely practiced in some districts, or in some fields, than in others. The liberal application of lime has been found advantageous as a preventive of A.; but even this often succeeds but imperfectly; and the increasing prevalence of this disease in certain districts seems not unlikely to neces sitate a considerable modification in the system of husbandry, in which the turnip-crop has long occupied so important a place. See TURNIP.