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"By the Signs"

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An article from the 1973 Gastonia Gazette about planting by the signs

Before many had access to accurate meteorological forecasting, farmers made use of the Farmer's Almanac, which made weather forecasts and gave farming advice based on moon phases and astrological signs (see a page of the Almanac below).

Many farmers in the Southern Appalachians and the Piedmont relied on the Almanac's guidance to inform when and what they planted, what season to harvest, and when they should slaughter livestock. This practice was referred to as planting "by the signs" or going "by the signs," and it was common among many older generations of Chatham farmers.  

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A page from the 1850 Farmer's Almanac. The Almanac gave detailed, daily predictions of astrological and meteorological phenomena.

 "[The Almanac] show[s] the observer  what kind of weather  will most probably  follow the entrance of  the moon into any of  its quarters, and that  so near the truth as to be seldom or never  found to fail"

- Farmer's Almanac, 1941

Listen to the Recordings

Andy Wilkie

By the Calendar

Description:

Wilkie recalls his family planting crops by the sign

Transcript:

"Oh my mother, that's what I grew up with, they would have the time to plant, the time to harvest by the calendar. It's [Interviewer: I heard about that, you'd have some Capricorn potatoes, since it's an earth sign and you'd get some really, really good] And they were usually correct. Of course, if a tide can--if a moon can change the tide, you know it can change a lot of other things we don't even realize."
00:00 / 00:30
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Georgia Barth

No Weatherman

Description:

Barth talks about the importance of the almanac in farm life

Transcript:

About everything you planted to the signs. Yeah, they didn't have no weatherman. The only time you seen the weather coming was in the sky. [Barth's Daughter: When it was just about here] And you'd make a dive for the house and that's the way it was. [Interviewer: So how would you know what to plan when?] The almanac told you the days to plant it, what good days was to plant it. And they went by that, really."
00:00 / 00:33
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Larry Smith

On the Earth, Not the Moon

Description:

Smith remembers his mother's skepticism towards planting by the sings

Transcript:

"It's kind of funny, my people used to used to say, you know, the signs would say this, that or the other and my grandmother, her line was, "I plant in the Earth not on the moon." And that was--and she was a wise old lady. But that's--that was her line about planting by the signs was she planted in the Earth and not on the moon so. [Interviewer: So she didn't believe in them then?] No she said, you know, it just depends on the dates and stuff like that, you know, if it was um, she-she had she had times in mind where you started plantin' this and that the other and it it didn't matter what the Zodiac said, you know, it was whatever the dates were so."
00:00 / 01:00
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Andy Pugh

The Farmer's Almanac

Description:

Pugh describes the old tradition of consulting the Almanac

Transcript:

"You've got people who do that, yeah. They read the Farmer's Almanac and, you know, all that kind of stuff. Farmer's Alamance leaves a broad brush stroke to follow, I mean it's--you read into it what you want to. "You don't plant a garden before, you know, before the end of April because you get a late frost in April" I mean, that's just the physical part of it, you know. You don't--there's, there's--I don't know if there's a lot to that, but I haven't studied it to, to see that."
00:00 / 00:33
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Robert Russell Webster

Sign Wasn't Right

Description:

Webster recalls how sign influenced farm life for his grandfather

Transcript:

'My grandparents, a lot of them, they went by the sign, explicitly, right by what it said. [Interviewer speaking] No. (...) Never have. I go by the weather, the moistures, you know, whatever, I couldn't. (...) After I got married the first time, my father-in-law had hogs. So, I tell him one Saturday, I said, "My knife's sharp. You wanna castrate them pigs, them hogs today?" Look at the sign. No, the sign wasn't right. The pig's about two, three weeks old. So next Satruday, same thing. Next Saturday, same thing. It got to where when the signs got right, the pigs weighed about fourty, fifty pounds a piece. And I was the one who had to hold them. And we had about sixty or seventy. And I told him when we got through, "Now, we're not gonna do this anymore. We gone get them when they little."
00:00 / 01:25
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