Moon is Powerless to Influence Crops.
"Scientists are now convinced that the moon has no more influence on crops than it has upon the temperature, or the amount of rain, or the winds, or any other weather element," say experts of the Federal Department of Agriculture.
"The growth of plants depends upon the amount of food in the soil and the air that is available for them, and upon temperature, light, and moisture. The moon obviously does not affect the character of the soil in any way; neither does it affect the composition of the atmosphere. The only remaining way in which it could influence plant growth, therefore, is by its light.[Pg 58]
"Recent experiments, however, show that full daylight is about six hundred thousand times brighter than full moonlight; yet, when a plant gets one-one-hundredth part of normal daylight, it thrives little better than in absolute darkness. If one-one-hundredth part of normal daylight is thus too little to stimulate a plant, it seems quite certain that a six-hundred-thousandth part cannot have any effect at all. It is, therefore, a mere waste of time to think about the moon in connection with the planting of crops.
"The moon has nothing more to do with this than it has to do with the building of fences, the time for killing hogs or any other of the innumerable things over which it was supposed to exert a strong influence."