May 2, 1991

LAST Sunday the moon was full. It flooded the fields and spilled light into the windows of high-rise apartments. And all over the country, moon gardeners were planting by it -- corn, pole beans, sweet peas -- because they know that a full moon will make corn grow tall and pull a vining bean right up the pole. "When I was 4 I'd go out with my grandmother, and we'd always try to plant potatoes on the full moon," said Michael Petitt, 25 years old, who grew up in the hills of Kentucky. "And we'd plant pole beans and corn and grasses on the full moon, for faster germination."

Although its sales are growing rapidly after it cut prices on its popular Macintosh machines, Apple Computer Inc. said today that its earnings for the third quarter of its fiscal year might be lower than for the corresponding period a year earlier. Apple executives said the dollar's resurgence on currency exchanges and the company's shift toward lower-priced products would hurt profit margins for the quarter ending June 30.

In its first formal proposal to end one of the longest and most rancorous bankruptcies in corporate history, the LTV Corporation offered today to pay $3 billion into steelworker retirement plans over 28 years, but at a huge cost to creditors and its own future. The plan, filed today with the Federal Bankruptcy Court in Manhattan, would force the diversified maker of steel and aerospace equipment to auction part of its operations just as buyers may be hard to find.

After a year of angry debate over tax increases and the way New Jersey finances public education, voters on Tuesday rejected 44 percent of the local school budgets submitted to them in one of the most politicized school elections in years. That percentage, however, was less than the 48 percent rejected last spring, reversing five years of steady increases in the number of school budgets rejected.

The Chrysler Corporation, hurt by slumping automotive demand, posted a first-quarter loss of $598 million today. However, the ailing auto maker said it would build more vehicles in the current quarter than it did in the first quarter, and said it did not plan to draw on backup credit lines for the remainder of the year. The first-quarter results followed reports of steep losses yesterday by its larger rivals. The General Motors Corporation posted a loss of $377 million and the Ford Motor Company one of $1.1 billion.