Rensselaer Union, Volume 5, Number 50, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 4 September 1873 — Dark Stables. [ARTICLE]

Dark Stables.

There are too many miserably dark horse stables,, when it is so well known that:light exercises a most important and salutary influence on the whole animal as well as vegetable kingdom. We are too apt to think that any place will do for a stable that is sufficiently dry, though the only opening for the admission of light be the entering door. This is all -wrong.* The eye of the horse is an exceedingly sensitive organ, and always suffers from long-continued darkness, as when, from partial sickness or disuse, he is kept a longer time than usual within doors, or in stables where the broad light of day is excluded. Most diseases to -which the animal is subject are more virulent in dark stables than where a full flood of light can be admitted. Darkness is said to favor rest and sleep, and this is doubtless true, but it can be of no possible benefit to the animal during’those long hours of wakeful incarceration to which it is sometimes subjected, unless it be to enable the jockey to take advantage of the effects. A horse brought from a" dark stable into the glare of the sunlight, is confused and startled from the imperfect vision of surrounding objects, and by his high stepping and uncertain action, impresses the novice with an idea of his spirit and action. Even though fat.may...bfi induced by darkness, it is nut conducive to muscular strength; for muscles "deprived ...of the stimulus of light, become flaccid, and the apparent high condition induced by this means is soon lost by active exertion. Men whose employments confine them to poorly-lighted apartments soon lose the color and the energy of full health, and the same resul.ts_follow. similar treatment of animals. Light and thorough ventilation should be the governing points in the erection of stabling for all domestic animals, and particularly for the horse.—Pacific Rural Press. —The Duluth Tribune says : “Upwards of 83,000 bushels of wheat of last year’s crop have already been shipped from Perham Station alone, on the Northern Pacific Railroad." Ask for Prussing’s Cider Vinegar and take n<><)ili('r,WarrantedtoPreserve.i. > ickles.,._