Note 825 — TUESDAY, OCTOBER 12.
Reading edition
'They have opinions which cannot be ranked with superstition, because they regard only natural effects. They expect better crops of grain by sowing their seed in the moon's increase. The moon has great influence in vulgar philosophy. In my memory it was a precept annually given in one of the English almanacks, "to kill hogs when the moon was increasing, and the bacon would prove the better in boiling."' Johnson's Works, ix. 104. Bacon, in his Natural History(No.892) says:—'For the increase of moisture, the opinion received is, that seeds will grow soonest if they be set in the increase of the moon.'