|p SiR a ala wines TaN RANTLE TI 
Farquharson of Alford, in Aberdeenshire, another 
prize essay by Mr. John Abbay of Kirby Hall in 
Yorkshire, and extracts from a communication 
by Mr. M. Birnie of Hyde Park near Aberdeen. 
From 1880 till about 1840, the disease seems to 
have somewhat steadily decreased ; and about the 
latter date, it became nearly or altogether ex- 
tinct on all the well-managed farms of the most 
thoroughly cultivated districts. 
Anbury infests, not the turnip only, but the 
cabbage and other varieties of brassica, and even 
the hollyhock and some other tap-rooted plants. 
It frequently attacks the young cabbage in the 
seed-bed, and appears then in the form of a gall 
| or wart upon the stem, in the immediate vicinity 
If the wart be opened, it will be | 
of the roots. 
found to contain a small white maggot, the larva 
of a little insect ; and if the wart and the maggot 
be removed, and the plant again placed in the 
soil, the latter, unless it sustain another attack, 
will recover from its wound, and suffer little re- 
tardation of its growth. But if the wart be not 
| disturbed, the maggot will feed upon the alburnum 
_ till the period of transformation into the next 
_ stage of insect existence approach; and it will 
then gnaw its way through the exterior bark, 
and leave the plant in a state of disease beyond 
the power of any remedy. The wart has now 
increased into a gall, which encircles the whole 
| stem; the alburnum is so extensively destroyed 
that the sap of the plant can no longer ascend ; 
and the whole plant, in consequence of ceasing 
to obtain a sufficiency of moisture through the 
roots to compensate for the transpiration of the 
leaves, loses all its healthy appearance, and be- 
comes flagging in its foliage and pallid in its 
colour. The swelling of the gall continues to in- 
crease; the vessels of the alburnum continue to 
afford a larger supply of juices than can be con- 
veyed away; air and moisture pass, through the 
perforation made by the maggot, into the interior 
of the excrescence ; the wounded vessels ulcerate ; 
and putrefaction and death speedily supervene. 
The tumour has probably become larger than an 
ordinary hen’s egg, and has a rugged and mouldy 
surface, and a strong and offensive smell; and the 
fibrous roots are generally thickened, distorted, 
and awry, and exhibit, through their whole 
length, unnatural swellings, of monstrous appear- 
ance, and seemingly occasioned by a long series 
of strenuous efforts in the plant to form recep- 
tacles for the sap which could no longer be spis- 
sated by the leaves. 
The anbury in turnips is rarely if ever visible 
in plants of less than seven weeks old, and is first 
indicated by the loss of natural vigour in the 
leaves. Though the leaves of a diseased’ root 
should happen to be larger than those of a sound 
plant, yet, whenever they receive the rays of the 
mid-day sun, they decline from their natural pos- 
ture into a flaccid condition ; and when thus en- 
feebled, they are generally attacked by a'minute 
species of acarus, and become tinctured with its 
z iy ioe a Ra STA Unt aver Ae Sa at SEE j 
ANBURY. 171 
delicate bluish-white web. The flagging state of 
the leaves is so distinct as to afford an easy and 
certain indication of the extent and direction of 
the disease athwart a field. In the earlier stages 
of the disease, small knobs or tubercles, occa- 
sioned by the punctures of insects, and contain- 
ing the larve of their future progeny, appear 
upon the roots of the plants; and in the ulterior 
stages, the true roots are destroyed, the excres- 
cences or subsidiary roots spread out in the form 
of digitation; and the bulb is altered in both 
structure and qualities, becomes thoroughly pu- 
trid, and emits an offensive smell. “Mr. Marshall 
very correctly describes the form which this dis- 
ease assumes when it attacks the turnip. It is 
a large excrescence appearing below the bulb, 
growing to the size of both hands, and, as soon 
as the hard weather sets in; or it is, by its own 
nature, brought to maturity, becoming putrid, 
and smelling very offensively. On the last day 
of August when the bulbs of the turnips were 
about the size of walnuts in the husk, the am- 
buries were as big as a goose’s egg. These were 
irregular and uncouth in their form, with inferior 
excrescences, resembling the races of ginger hang- 
ing to them. On cutting them, their general ap- | 
pearance is that of a hard turnip, but on examin- 
ing them through a magnifier, there are veins or 
string-like vessels, dispersed among the pulp. | 
The smell and taste somewhat resemble those of 
turnips, but without their mildness, having an 
austere and somewhat disagreeable flavour, re- 
sembling that of an old stringy turnip.” [d/7. 
George W. Johnson.| One or more galls are per- 
ceptible on the roots of a plant whose flaccid 
leaves indicate it to be affected ; and these, as in 
the case of the cabbage anbury, become large ex- 
crescences inhabited by larvee or small maggots. 
Each larva, in very young plants, has the appear- 
ance of a minute globule of water, and cannot be 
distinguished by the naked eye. As soon as the 
insect is prepared to leave its nidus, the excres- 
cence becomes soft, spongy, and putrescent, the 
rind bursts, and a fetid smell, peculiar to decom- 
posing vegetable matter, is emitted. Partridges 
appear to be very fond of the larva; and when- 
ever they are seen to congregate among affected 
turnips, they are found to perforate the galls, and 
take out the larva. “Several insects are now 
attracted to the putrifying mass. A species of 
musca deposits its eggs on the surface. The 
larvee burrow in the mass; these are followed by 
different species of staphylinus, pzderus, &c. 
The former of these seem to live on the larvee of 
the musca, for two of these lived three months, 
while supplied with these larvae, but died soon 
after the supply was discontinued. They did not 
appear to touch the matter of the turnip on 
which the larva of the fly lived. Under these 
circumstances, when moist weather occurs, the 
mass affected soon wastes away, and frequently a 
large root is found a mere shell.” [Mr. Sinclair.] 
The insect whose larva occurs as either cause 
