“The moon had more to do with running the 
country than the sun did” said the old timer of the days of his youth. Root crops and tubers, plants of darkness, are planted in the dark of the moon; above ground crops in the light of the moon. The dark of the moon is also the time for deadening trees, killing weeds, riving shingles, splitting rails, laying rail fences, taking medicine, charming warts and sites. The light of the moon is the time when fruit cannot be killed, when fruit trees should be pruned and cut for good growth, potatoes dug and pork meat slaughtered. The signs of the zodiac also control planting and disease. Plant cabbage when the sign is in the head; cucumbers, melons, and fruit when it is in the twins; and corn in Scorpio; and castrate pigs “when th’ signs leaves th’ privates an’ is a startin’ down.” One is most susceptible to stomach trouble in Cancer, through diseases in Taurus. Thus the almanac occupies a place beside the Bible, and if one can make out the text as well as the signs, “not more for the weather prophecies” according to one informant “than for the witty jokes and sayings together with a good deal of world history.”
