SOW BY MOON

Greymouth Evening Star, 15 May 1939, Page 8

SOW BY MOON

ASTROLOGER’S CLAIMS

LONDON, April 15

Gardening by the stars and moon was expounded at the Astrologers’ Convention at Harrogate, England, this week by Mrs. Ada Parkes of Epsom, Surrey. “Sow two days before the full moon,’’ declared Mrs. Parkes, “and you will have bumper crops. Sow under the waning moon and you will be a disappointed gardener.” There is an exception she warned gardeners. Root crops must be sown when the moon is on the wane. The reason, she pointed out, is that potatoes, carrots and turnips and members of their family are “ruled by a different star.” ,

Mrs. Parkes is convinced that the whole art of gardening is to find what stars rule what. Venus’s “gracious rulership” extends over the kingdom of flowers, but Mars controls beans and radishes and saturn determines the length of parsnips. “In some unseen way,” said Mrs. Parkes, “the rhythm of the moon acts upon nature.” Mrs. Parkes feeds herself, her husband, and her three children entirely on vegetables and fruit from a third-of-an-acre patch.

Her cook, Mrs. Feather, said this week: “There aren’t any vegetables like Mrs. Parkes’s in all Epsom. No one’s ever ill in this house. Mrs. Parkes never buys any vegetables or flowers, and very little fruit, except oranges.”

Mrs. Feather, who has cooked for Mrs. Parkes for eight years added: “At first I didn’t hold with all this talk of the moon and the stars but now I know Mrs. Parkes is right.” Asked for his opinion Mr. William Clay, a gardening expert said, “I don’t know anything about astrology, but I do know from experiments that seeds germinate better when the moon is rising than when it is on the wane. “I have used the same seed in exactly the same conditions and the seed planted when the moon was rising germinated 50 per cent, better than when I planted some a lortnight later.” A scientist member of the Royal Horticultural Society said: “Judging from experiments, we cannot say whether the moon itself, when it is rising, is responsible for a better germination of seed. But it would seem that there is evidence in favour of the theory.” The scientist added, however, that the contention of the astrologers that certain planets governed vegetables and flowers was nonsense.