28 
CABBAGE. 
In Germany the disease is more or less known by a word signifying 
rupture or hernia, or in combination, a breaking or decay. These 
diseased growths are easily distinguishable from weevil-galls, which 
are only knobs, or clusters of knobs, with a maggot inside each, or an 
eaten-out cell with a hole in the side showing where the maggot has 
been. This “ Anbury” or “ Club” disease, caused not by insects, but 
by a kind of fungus known as “ Slime-fungus,” scientifically as the 
Plasmodiophora brassicce, are not unfrequently sent me. I append a 
short note of its cause and the treatment for its cure, taken mainly 
from the chapter on this fungus given by Mr. Worthington G. Smith, 
in his serviceable volume on ‘ Diseases of Field and Garden Crops.’* 
This peculiar slime-fungus was discovered, in 1876 by M. Woronin, 
to be the cause of “ Club,” and (without going into the minutiae of 
growth), may be generally described as a mass of matter which has a 
power of creeping onwards by what are somewhat like arm-like 
processes, into which the material of the central mass or plasmodium 
presses. This mass, outside its enclosing layer, has been observed to 
be further enclosed in a coat of mucilage, “ which is sometimes left 
behind by the progressing plasmodium , like a trail of slime from a 
slug.” This slime-fungus is stated to be often present in soil, but 
when infested pieces of root are left about, the fungus, or the com¬ 
posing parts of it called plasmodia, are washed by rain from the 
decaying “ Club,” or “ Anbury’’-diseased root, on to the ground where 
they live on in a condition in which the fungus will grow on so as to 
start attack on fresh plants of the kinds which it infests, which it 
may reach. 
Details of experiments are given in which seedling Turnips on 
fresh soil remained undiseased, whilst those which were grown from 
seed sown amongst earth with broken-up “ Club ” in it, became 
fatally diseased. 
It appears to be proved that the fungus in dilute condition is 
absorbed like any ordinary moisture or moist food by the rootlets of 
the Turnip or Cabbage, and thus the disease is conveyed into the 
plant-system. Further, it appears that the fungus may remain on 
from one year to another after bad infestation. 
Some very important means of prevention and remedy turn on the 
above points, namely, not to allow Turnip- or Cabbage-roots diseased 
with “ Club” or “Anbury ” to remain on the land, or to be thrown to 
refuse or dung-lieaps, whence the infestation is quite sure to be carried 
back to the land with the enrichment. Also on land which is known 
to be specially liable to suffer from this disease, the length of time in 
* ‘Diseases of Field and Garden Crops,’ by Worthington G. Smith; with one 
hundred and forty-three illustrations. Macmillan, London. 
