33 
GLENN Y S GARDEN ALMANACK. 
a few days before the new moon, is one of the 
most durable woods in the world for house- 
building, posts, &c. ; in that state, attempt to 
split it, and, with the utmost difficulty, it 
would be riven in the most, jagged and unequal 
manner that can be imagined. Cut down 
another wallaba (that grew within a few yards 
of the former) at the full moon, and the 
tree can be easily split into the finest smooth 
shingles of any desired thickness, or into staves 
for making casks ; but in this state, applied to 
house-building purposes, it speedily decays. 
Again, — bamboos as thick as a man's arm are 
sometimes used for paling, &c. : if cut at the 
dark moon, they will invariably endure for 
ten or twelve years; if at the full moon, j 
they will be rotten in two or three years; 
thus it is with most, if not all the forest 
trees. Of the effects of the Moon on animal 
life, very many instances could be cited. I 
have seen in Africa newly young perish in a 
few hours at the mother's side, when exposed 
to the rays of the full moon. Fish become 
rapidly putrid, and meat, if left exposed, in- 
curable or unpreservable by salt ; the mariner, 
heedlessly sleeping on the deck, becoming 
afflicted with nyctolopia, or night-blindness ; 
at times the face hideously swollen if exposed 
during sleep to the Moon's rays. The maniac's 
paroxysms renewed with fearful vigour at the 
full and change ; and the cold, damp chill of 
the ague supervening on the ascendency of 
this apparently mild, yet powerful luminary. 
Let her influence over this earth be studied, — 
it is more powerful than is ge?ieral!y 
known.' 
" This is the testimony of a gentleman who 
speaks from actual experience, and who, in all 
probability, went to Demerara with as little 
faith in lunar influence as have many of our 
modern groping philosophers in England. 
Among the believers in stellar influence are 
to be found ' some of the clearest-headed men 
in England.' Indeed it is no difficult matter 
to prove that some of the master minds of this 
and other countries were firm believers in 
astral influence. Such men, for instance, as 
Zoroaster, Josephus, Thales, Anaximander, 
Pythagoras, Anaxagoras, Socrates, Plato, Eu- 
doxus, Hippocrates, Proclus, Pliny, Galen, 
Virgil, Horace, Claudius, Ptolemy, Mercurius 
Trismegistus, Haly, Alphard, Albumazar, 
Roger Bacon, Melancthon, Cardan, Lord 
Bacon, Tycho Brahe, Baron Napier, Cornelius 
Agrippa, James Usher, Archbishop of Ar- 
magh, Bishop Robert Hall, Dryden, Sir Mat- 
thew Hale, Sir George Wharton, Placidus de 
Titus, Sir Christopher Heydon, George Wit- 
chel, Astronomer Royal, Portsmouth ; Elias 
Ashmole, founder of the Museum ; Dr. Hut- 
ton, ard Professor Simpson; and hundreds 
more might be mentioned. We submit the 
following to practical men, to be disproved if 
possible, — -fiat experi mention: — 
" 1. Vines, if pinned when the Moon is 
increasing in light, will shoot out, spread, and 
grow fast, particularly if it be done in the 
second quarter, because, as the light of the 
Moon increases, so does the sap in the tree. 
" 2. Vines, if pruned while the Moon is 
decreasing in light, will not spread nor grow 
fast, particularly if it be done during the last 
quarter, because the sap decreases with the 
light. 
""3. Timber cut down while the Moon is 
increasing, will soon become rotten, particu- 
larly if she be in the second quarter. 
" 4. Timber cut down when the Moon is 
decreasing, will last for years, and the more 
durable it will be if cut down during the last 
quarter.* 
" 5. Peas sown during the Moon's increase 
will bloom to the last, and will be full and rich 
in flavour ; still more certain if sown during 
the second quarter. 
" 6. Peas sown when the Moon is decreas- 
ing in light will be just in the opposite condi- 
tion. 
" 7. The age to which a pomegranate will 
live depends on the Moon's age at the time of 
planting ; it will live just as many years as 
the Moon was days old. 
" 8. Plants and shrubs shoot up and take 
little root if planted when the Moon is increas- 
ing in light, and in the zodiacal signs Gemini, 
Libra, or Aquarius. 
" 9. If planted when the Moon is decreas- 
ing in the signs Taurus, Virgo, or Capricornus, 
they take deep root and do not grow tall." — 
Pp. 23—26. 
An article on the influence of light is equally 
interesting, but we must wait for another 
number and give it whole. A very extraordi- 
nary paper on sun-dials, and an especial notice 
of the sun-dial of Ahaz, has some claim to 
originality, and the examples of various cal- 
culations that interest the scientific world are 
worthy of notice. The list of fruits worthy 
of cultivation in every garden gives us a good 
idea of the tricks of the trade ; each fruit is 
given with its proper name, and to this is 
added all the other names by which the same 
fruit is sold by different nurseries, and in too 
many instances by a single dealer ; some of 
the popular subjects in apples, pears, peaches, 
and nectarines, have eight or ten different de- 
signations, so that a person, from a common 
trade catalogue, may order twenty- four kinds 
and find himself burthened by the same thing 
under many different names. The aim of the 
* If our government would attend to this simple 
rule we should hear nothing of the dry rot in the 
British Navy, and a saving of from four to five 
hundred thousand pounds per year might be effected. 
