CHAPTER X 



THE MOON AND PLANT GROWTH 



" Sow peason and beanes in the wane of the moone, 

 Who soweth them sooner, he soweth too soone, 

 That they with the planet may rest and arise, 

 And flourish with bearing most plentiful wise." 



Thomas Tusser: Five Hundred Points of Good 

 Husbandrie (1562). 



During the Middle Ages, and even up till about 

 two centuries ago, there was a very widespread 

 belief that tYtiy plant was under the direct influence 

 of some particular planet, and in the writings of 

 some of the old herbalists we find much interesting 

 information on this subject. Aubrey says that 

 ^' if a plant be not gathered according to the rules 

 of astrology, it hath little or no virtue in it." 



Nicholas Culpepper set up in Spitalfields, about 

 the year 1640, as an astrologer and physician. 



He was highly unpopular with the medical 

 profession, which is hardly surprising, when we 

 consider the way in which he speaks of them in his 

 book as, "" a company of proud, insulting, domineer- 

 ing doctors, whose wits were born about 500 years 

 before themselves." In '' The British Herbal and 

 Family Physician " he gives a list of some 500 plants, 

 and the names of the planets which govern them: 

 " Such as are astrologers (and indeed none else 

 are fit to make physicians), such I advise: let the 

 planet that governs the Herb be angular, and the 



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