Rensselaer Union, Volume 7, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 22 July 1875 — Use the Sunshine. [ARTICLE]

Use the Sunshine.

“ The sunshine is,a glorious birth?’ giving warmth, giving light, giving life to all nature. It takes us long to find out our best friends, 'andwfc have scarcely begun to appreciate ohr sunshine, Wr hide away in dark, damp houses, and Jgrean. and ache, and cough our livre away, while a little more sunshine, used all day and even’ day when it can be had, would make our lives not simply endurable, but ioyful. I have learned to dread window-blinds, and even white ’’♦uxdow-curtains that cannot be entirely drawn aside during the day. I like a frill blare Of daylight in my, living and my sleeping rooms, except on very hot days, when every living thing must crawl into the shade. But there is, Bps, no day extremely hqt as to r a twilight reMit all day in rooms where people live. No rooms can be healthy that are kept dark. Children cannot thrive, any more than plants, unless they live habitually in the light- Invalids neglect one of their best means of recovery to health when they retire to darkened rooms and learn to dread the light. Ilya true that persons who have lived for years in dimly-lighted rooms feel paindir by the brightness lof better-lighted apartments, and dread to gfr out-doors without veils and parasols; but that is only because darkness has made them sickly creatures, out of all harmony with healthy conditions. Some housekeeper! dove darkness rather than light, because their deeds are evil. They do not wish their dusty corners to come to the light and be reproved. Others place an in ordinate value upon the bright colors of their carpets, not knowing that bright faces and bright spirits are far more important than carpets, and that bright faces and bright spirits depend much upon the sunshine, I w ish every housekeeper would turn all j her bedding into the bright sunshine every pleasant day, and on rainy days some artificial heat might be used instead. We hope for the time when bathing facilities will abound, when clean bodies will lay them down to sleep in clean beds, and sleep will indeed be balmy. If any reader does not understand this let her sun only the sheets of her bed and her night-cloth-ing for two hours every forenoon, half a dozen times, and she’ will notice how perceptible is the fresh, clean smell they have at night. Merely to air a bed in a shady room is not half so well. The bright sunshine (perhaps I ought to say the hot sunshine, for I notice that the bright win ter sunbeams do not entirely produce the same effect) seems to take out all of the perspiration, all of the personal odor, which is apt to linger about bedding and clothing in the summer. When it is con.venient to air freshly-ironed garments in the sunshine this is much better than to hang them by the fire. You w ill find that they have a different smell, and one that is very fragrant. — Faith .Rochester, in American Agriculturist.