ANBURY; AND THE ANALYSIS OF 

 DISEASED TURNIPS. 



IT is well known that turnips grown upon light sandy soils are 

 much more frequently affected by " Anbury," or " fingers and 

 toes/' than roots grown on stiffer land, containing a fair proportion 

 of the four chief components of all soils clay, lime, sand, and 

 vegetable matter. 



The cause of these disorders in the turnip-crop is justly re- 

 ferred in most instances to the absence or insufficiency of lime in 

 light sandy soils ; hence the manifest benefit with which lime, 

 chalk, marl, shell-sand, and other calcareous manures are used as 

 preventives of this and similar diseases in turnips on such soils. 



But, at the same time, it must not be supposed that the ab- 

 sence or deficiency of lime in land is always the cause of fingers 

 and toes in turnips, and that liming is a universal preventive of 

 this disease. In proof of this, I may observe that not long ago I 

 examined a soil which contained plenty of lime, and yet pro- 

 duced diseased turnips ; and also that I have seen fingers and 

 toes in roots grown on calcareous soils, probably containing from 

 30 to 40 per cent, of lime. If it be remembered that the ash of 

 turnips contains some ten or twelve different kinds of inorganic 

 matter, it will not appear strange that the absence of available 

 potash, or the insufficiency of phosphoric acid, or the want of 

 sulphuric acid in the soil, may produce diseased turnips as well as 

 the deficiency of lime. There can be no doubt that we should 

 know much more respecting the causes of the increasing failures 

 in turnips than we do at present, if we were less apt to take 

 things for granted, and were more inclined to examine a great 

 number of cases, even at the risk of adding nothing more to our 

 existing stock of information on the subject. Viewed in this 

 light every well-authenticated case of disease in turnips must 

 have some interest to the botanist and the agricultural chemist. 



I therefore gladly availed myself of an opportunity of in- 

 specting a crop of turnips affected by Anbury in the most extra- 

 ordinary degree. A brief account of the case, and the subse- 

 quent examination of the soil and evils to which it led, may, 

 I trust, not be altogether void of interest to the agricultural reader. 



The instance just referred to occurred on a farm at Ashton- 

 Keynes, a village about six miles from Cirencester. On visit- 

 is 2 



