11 MARCH 1949, Page 15

Moonstruck Potatoes An allusion the other day to a suggestion

of the phenologists that barley ought to be sown when the blackthorn flowers has suggested a parallel passage from Spain. In thepeighbourhood of Barcelona it is an almost universal belief that crops should be sown only at certain phases of the moon, as many English peasants hold of the killing of pigs I A Spanish correspondent is inclined to think that potatoes intended for consumption keep better if the unwanted sprouts are rubbed off at the right phase of the moon. For myself, I cannot but think that the moon is more productive of superstition than of scientific knowledge.