Roman farming manuals were emphatic: harvest on a waning moon if you want it to keep, and fell your timber then too.

Pliny and Columella both give the rule, and it survived in European forestry for two thousand years. "Moon wood", cut on a waning moon, still sells at a premium in parts of the Alps on the claim that it warps and rots less. Controlled trials have found nothing. It is one of the most stubbornly practical pieces of moon lore in existence.