dwindle with the waning moon,” and he quotes from a commentary of Plutarch’s on Hesiod a statement that the onion is the only vegetable which violates this great law of nature by sprouting in the wane and withering in the increase of the moon.(339) Scottish Highlanders allege that in the increase of the moon everything has a tendency to grow or stick together;(340) and they call the second moon of autumn “the ripening moon” (_Gealach an abachaidh_), because they imagine that crops ripen as much by its light as by day.(341) (M109) From this supposed influence of the moon on the life of plants and animals, men in ancient and modern times have deduced a whole code of rules for the guidance of the husbandman, the shepherd, and others in the conduct of their affairs. Thus an ancient writer on agriculture lays it down as a maxim, that whatever is to be sown should be sown while the moon is waxing, and that whatever is to be cut or gathered should be cut or gathered while it is waning.(342) A modern treatise on superstition describes how the superstitious man regulates all his conduct by the moon: “Whatever he would have to grow, he sets about it when she is in her increase; but for what he would have made less he chooses her wane.”(343) In Germany the phases of the moon are observed by superstitious people at all the more or even less important actions of life, such as tilling the fields, building or changing houses, marriages, hair-cutting, bleeding, cupping, and so forth. The particular rules vary in different places, but the principle generally followed is that whatever is done to increase anything should be done while the moon is waxing; whatever is done to diminish anything should be done while the moon is waning. For example, sowing, planting, and grafting should be done in the first half of the moon, but the felling of timber and mowing should be done in the second half.(344) In various parts of Europe it is believed that plants, nails, hair, and corns, cut while the moon is on the increase, will grow again fast, but that if cut while it is on the decrease they will grow slowly or waste away.(345) Hence persons who wish their hair to grow thick and long should cut it in the first half of the moon.(346) On the same principle sheep are shorn when the moon is waxing, because it is supposed that the wool will then be longest and most enduring.(347) Some negroes of the Gaboon think that taro and other vegetables never thrive if they are planted after full moon, but that they grow fast and strong if they are planted in the first quarter.(348) The Highlanders of Scotland used to expect better crops of grain by sowing their seed in the moon’s increase.(349) On the other hand they thought that garden vegetables, such as onions and kail, run to seed if they are sown in the increase, but that they grow to pot-herbs if they are sown in the wane.(350) So Thomas Tusser advised the peasant to sow peas and beans in the wane of the moon “that