Clubbing

Clubbing, in cabbages, turnips, and other plants of the genus Brassica, a diseased growth of tubercular excrescences in the upper part of the root or lower part of the stem, caused by the larvae of the Cabbage-fly (q.v.) and of other insects, by which the vigorous growth of the plant is prevented, and crops are often much injured. It is common for gardeners to cut away these excrescences, with their contained larvæ, in planting out young cabbages, &c.; and where they are not so numerous that the injury done by the knife is necessarily great, this plan succeeds very well. Dressings of gas-lime applied to the soil some time before planting is the best preventive of this evil; but change of crop, when practicable, is of all things the most commendable. Clubbing is sometimes confounded with Anbury (q.v.), from which it is quite distinct.