ANALYSIS. 



ANBURY. 



and phosphoric acids. Hence, these will be 

 found constituents of all soils. The phosphates 

 have been overlooked from the known diffi- 

 culty of detecting phosphoric acid. Phosphate 

 of lime is so easily soluble when combined 

 with mucilage or gelatine, that it is among the 

 first principles of soils exhausted. Doubtless 

 the good effects, the lasting effects, of bone 

 manure, depend more on the phosphate of 

 lime, than on its animal portion. Though the 

 same plants growing in different soils are 

 found to yield variable quantities of the salts 

 and earthy compounds ; yet I believe, that ac- 

 curate analysis will show, that similar parts of 

 the same species, at the same age, always 

 contain the inorganic principles above named, 

 when grown in soils arising from the natural 

 decomposition of granite rocks. These inor- 

 ganic substances will be found not only in 

 constant quantity, but always in definite pro- 

 portion to the vegetable portion of each plant. 

 The effect of cultivation may depend, there- 

 fore, much more on the introduction- 

 than has been generally supposed. The salts 

 introduce new breeds. So long as the salts 

 and earths exist in the soil, so long will they 

 form voltaic batteries with the roots of grow- 

 ing plants; by which, the 'gran tic sand' is 

 decomposed and the nascent earths, in this 

 state readily soluble, are taken up by the ab- 

 sorbents of the roots, always a living, never a 

 mechanical operation. Hence, so long as the 

 soil is granitic, using the term as above defined, 

 so long is it as good as on the day of its depo- 

 sition ; salts*and geine may vary, and must be 

 modified by cultivation. The universal diffu- 

 sion of granitic diluvium will always afford 

 enough of the earthy ingredients. The fertile 

 character of soils, I presume, will not be found 

 dependent on any particular rock formation 

 on which it reposes. Modified they may be, to 

 a certain extent, by peculiar formations; but 

 all our grantic rocks afford, when decomposed, 

 all those inorganic principles which plants 

 demand. This is so true, that on this point 

 the farmer already knows all that chemistry 

 can teach him. Clay and sand, every one 

 knows: a soil too sandy, too clayey. 

 modified by mixture, but the best possible 

 mixture does not give fertility. That depends 

 on salts and geine. If these views are correct, 

 the few properties of geine which I have men- 

 tioned, will lead us at once to a simple and 

 accurate mode of analyzing soils, a mode, 

 which determines at once the value of a soil, 

 from its quantity of soluble and insoluble 

 vegetable nutriment, a mode, requiring no 

 array of apparatus, nor delicate experimental 

 tact, one, which the country gentleman may 

 apply with very great accuracy ; and, with a 

 little modification, perfectly within the reach 

 of any man who can drive a team or hold a 

 plough."] 



ANALYSIS OF VEGETABLES. The pro- 

 cess or means by which such bodies are re- 

 solved into their constituent or elementary 

 principles. (See CHEMISTRY, or VEGETABLE 

 CHEMISTRY.) 



ANBURY. In farriery, a kind of \ren, or 

 spongy soft tumour or wart, commonly full of 

 blood, growing on any part of an animal's 



body. Substances of this kind may be re- 

 moved either by means of ligatures being 

 passed round their bases, or by the knife, and 

 the subsequent application of some caustic 

 material, in order to effectually destroy the 

 parts from which they arise. 



ANBURY, THE, AMBURY, HANBURY, 

 or CLUB-ROOT. The anbury, the correct 

 name, is evidently derived from the Saxon 

 word ambre, a wart, suffused with blood, to 

 which horses are subject. In Holderness, a 

 district of Yorkshire, this disease is known as 

 " fingers and toes," from its causing the top 

 root of the turnip to be divided into swollen 

 fibres, resembling those members of the human 

 body. On this, Mr. Spence, the entomologist, 

 \vn>te a very sensible pamphlet, entitled "Ob- 

 servations on the Diseases in Turnips, termed 

 in Holderness Fingers and Toes, Hull, 1812." 

 The deficiency of knowledge relative to the 

 diseases of plants is well illustrated by the 

 imperfert and inaccurate observations that 

 hav tn-ea adventured upon this disease. 

 Where there is much difference of opinion 

 there is little real knowledge, and both these 

 are certainly the case in the instance before 

 me cultivators assert that the disease 

 ari-i-s from a variableness and unfavourable 

 state of the seasons ; a second party of theorists 

 advance, that it is caused by insects ; and a 

 third, that it is owing to a too frequent growth 

 of the same crop upon the same site. Every 

 man having formed an opinion, usually clings 

 to it pertinaciously, and sets its estimate far 

 above its real value or correctness. "It is 

 with our opinions as our watches, none go just 

 alike, yet each believes his own." The chief 

 error appears to be in considering any of the 

 above enumerated causes as the exclusive 

 one; for beyond doubt they each contribute, 

 either immediately or remotely, to induce or 

 exasperate the attacks of the anbury. [The 

 disease attacks the hollyhock, and other plants, 

 especially those belonging to the brassica or 

 cabbage family.] Cabbage-plants are fre- 

 quently infected with anbury in the seed-bed, 

 and this incipient infection appears in the form 

 of a gall or wart upon the stem, immediately 

 in the vicinity of the roots; if this wart is 

 opened it will be found to contain a small 

 white maggot, the larva of a small insect called 

 the weevil. If the gall and its tenant being 

 removed, the plant is placed again in the earth 

 where it is to remain unless it is again at- 

 tacked, the wound usually heals, and the 

 growth is little retarded. On the other hand, 

 if the gall is left undisturbed, the maggot con- 

 tinues to feed upon the alburnum, or young 

 woody part of the stem, until the period arrives 

 for its passing into the other insect form, pre- 

 viously to which it gnaws its way out through 

 the exterior bark. The disease is now almost 

 beyond the power of remedies, the gall, in- 

 creased in size, encircles the whole stem ; the 

 alburnum being so extensively destroyed, pre- 

 vents the sap ascending, consequently, in dry 

 weather, sufficient moisture is not supplied 

 from the roots, to counterbalance the transpi- 

 ration of the leaves, and the diseased plant is 

 very discernible among its healthy compa- 

 nions, by its pallid hue and nagging foliage. 



93 



