170 
veloping small knots or tubercles, of a form 
similar to the anbury in the horse; and it also 
bears the designations of fingers and toes and of 
canker,—the former from its producing such a 
series of united tap-roots as make the turnip 
have the shape of a boxer’s glove, and the latter 
from its eventually eating away most of the in- 
terior substance of the turnip, and occasioning 
the rest to be fetidly putrescent. 
Anbury, tilla few years ago, threatened to exter- 
minate the turnip in some districts of Britain, and 
even to render the cultivation of it in any district 
adventurous; and it has been the topic of much con- 
troversy, many theories, and general uncertainty 
as to at once its history, its nature, its causes, 
and its cure. One theory supposes it to be a 
topical disease, and to have been propagated from 
one place to another by the carriage of seeds; 
another supposes it to have arisen from a peculiar 
combination of soil, climate, and culture in one 
locality, and to have been propagated by infec- 
tion; a third supposes it to be the consequence 
| of an excessive or unduly prolonged cultivation 
' of the turnip, and to have been forced into exist- 
| ence wherever such cultivation had been prac- 
| tised; a fourth supposes it to have originated in 
variableness and inclemency of weather through- 
out a season, and to be propagated or repressed 
according to the adverseness or favourableness of 
the weather of succeeding seasons; a fifth sup- 
poses it to be an inoculation from a similar dis- 
ease in other varieties of the brassica tribe, and 
to have been propagated by the migrations of 
the insects by whose means it is inflicted ; and a 
sixth supposes that it is strictly constitutional in 
the turnip, and must necessarily become devel- 
oped whenever the plant is produced in a high or 
even fair degree of healthiness and strength. 
Nor are these theories respecting its origin and 
propagation so conflicting as opinions respecting 
its nature. One theory asserts it to be a disease 
in the organism of the turnip ; another asserts it 
to be a disease in the secretions; a third asserts 
it to be a poisoning from some peculiarity in 
either soil or manure; a fourth asserts it to be 
consumption by an insect common to the turnip 
with other varieties of brassica; a fifth asserts it 
to be consumption by an insect peculiar to itself; 
a sixth asserts it to be poisoning by the voided 
secretions of some one or other insect; and a 
seventh asserts it to be commenced in organic 
feebleness and completed by insectal depreda- 
tion. Differences of opinion as to the best means 
of curing or preventing it, or even as to the prac- 
ticability of its prevention, are, as we shall after- 
wards see, quite as numerous and conflicting. 
Had not quite recent experience proved that 
thorough cultivation will not only prevent but 
exterminate anbury, we might probably have 
summed up all true existing knowledge respect- 
ing anbury in the humiliating statement, that 
this one disease in a single variety of vegetable 
has bewildered wise men and stultified science. 
ANBURY. 
ao: 
But we have now distinct reason for asserting 
that anbury is of a complex nature and diversi- | 
fied origin, and that it is always and most effec- 
tively prevented by such stimulating cultivation 
as occasions the young turnip plant to have a 
rapid and vigorous growth. Yet the facts which 
have brought out this gratifying conclusion are 
so recent, that—were it only for the purpose of 
recording curious and instructive matter for 
future history—we must compose a summary of 
previous observations and statements respecting 
the diseas’s history, appearances, and effects. 
Anbury seems to have been known in Suffolk 
during upwards of a century; and yet it did not 
begin to attract the general attention of British 
farmers, or to make its appearance in more than 
two or three districts of country, till about the 
year 1810 or 1815. The late Arthur Young, Esq., 
writing in 1819, says, “To my knowledge, the | 
disease in turnips called fingers and toes has been 
known in Suffolk above fifty years; and I am in- 
formed it was known long before that period. 
But I am quite unacquainted with the districts 
in which it first appeared.” In the latter part 
of last century, and in the early part of the pre- 
sent, it made great havoc in Holderness, a dis- 
trict in the vicinity of Hull in Yorkshire; and 
in 1812, Mr. Spence, the entomologist, published 
a very sensible pamphlet, entitled ‘Observations 
on the Diseases in Turnips, termed in Holderness 
Fingers and Toes. The disease appeared in 
Berwickshire and Roxburghshire about the year 
1799; it was supposed by some persons to have 
been brought thither from Holderness, yet did 
not become known in the vicinity of Newcastle 
till several years later; it was not seen in Ber- 
wickshire and Roxburghshire for thirty years 
after turnip cultivation had been commenced ; 
and, from the time of its appearance till about 
the year 18380, it occasionally fluctuated in both 
prevalence and power, but on the whole made 
such a steady, progressive, and alarming increase 
as menaced all turnip-culture with speedy exter- 
mination. In 1819, the disease prevailed to a 
very disastrous extent, not only in these Scottish 
counties, but in several of the principal agricul- 
tural counties of England; in September of that 
year, a general meeting of the Caledonian Horti- 
cultural Society, addressed formal inquiries into 
its phenomena and treatment, to a number of | 
the most eminent cultivators in Great Britain ; 
and afterwards, communications in reply from 
Mr. George Sinclair of Woburn Abbey, Messrs. 
D. and A. Macdougall of Cessford near Kelso, the 
Rev. George Jenyns, prebendary of Ely, and the 
well-known Arthur Young, Esq., and Sir John 
Sinclair, Bart., were published in the Society’s 
Memoirs. In 1828, the Highland Society offered 
an honorary premium for the best practical essay 
on the appearances and prevention of anbury, 
founded on the personal knowledge of the au- 
thor; and in their Transactions of August 1830, 
they published one prize essay by the Rev. James 
