They have so long been allowed to steal and destroy in peace that any impediment to forest robbery is denounced as a cruel and irreligious interference with vested rights, likely to endanger the repose of all ungodly welfare. As timber the redwood is too good to live. . These residual forests are generally on mountain slopes, just where they are doing the most good, and where their removal would be followed by the greatest number of evils; the lands they cover are too rocky and high for agriculture, and can never be made as valuable for any other crop as for the present crop of trees. Our National Parks, by John Muir (1901, c. 1909) - The Writings of John Muir - John Muir Exhibit (John Muir Education Project, Sierra Club California) Our National Parks by John Muir Contents List of Illustrations Preface The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West The Yellowstone National Park The Yosemite National Park They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyed, chased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones. He wrote many magazine articles and books, inspiring other people to love nature and drawing attention to the need to protect the environment. In 1913, Congress passed a law that approved the construction of the dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley. The people will not always be deceived by selfish opposition, whether from lumber and mining corporations or from sheepmen and prospectors, however cunningly brought forward underneath fables and gold. After several legal battles, Congress established Yosemite National Park in 1890 in order to protect thousands of acres of forest land from further destruction. A Wind-Storm in the Forests. The abstract is typically a short summary of the contents of the document. By such methods have our magnificent redwoods and much of the sugar-pine forests of the Sierra Nevada been absorbed by foreign and resident capitalists. A Wind-Storm in the Forests. In his article "The American Forests", John Muir discusses the beauty of the American forests along with their being easy targets for unwise people destroying them for their egoistical purposes. On the contrary, all the brains, religion, and superstition of the neighborhood are brought into play to prevent a new growth. 1971. The whole continent was a garden, and from the beginning it seemed to be favored above all the other wild parks and gardens of the globe. The settlement laws, under which a settler may enter lands valuable for timber as well as for agriculture, furnish another means of obtaining title to public timber. Selecting a favorable spot for a cabin near a meadow with a stream, he unpacks his animal and stakes it out on the meadow. The week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? Every one of the frail shake shanties is a centre of destruction, and the extent of the ravages wrought in this quiet way is in the aggregate enormous. The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West, chapter 1 of 'Our National Parks' by John Muir (1901). While in Alaska, I saw the loveliest forests and scenery I've ever seen. During his lengthy wanderings, Muir contemplated man's relationship to nature. The disappearance of the forests in the first place, it is claimed, may be traced in most cases directly to mountain pasturage. Muir, John, "The American Forests" (1897). Nor will the woods be the worse for this use, or their benign influences be diminished any more than the sun is diminished by shining. > Abstract. The prospector deliberately sets fires to clear off the woods just where they are densest, to lay the rocks bare and make the discovery of mines easier. As for reservation and protection of forests, it seems as silly and needless to them as protection and reservation of the ocean would be; both appearing to be boundless and inexhaustible. Thus for nearly thirty-seven million dollars worth of timber the government got less than nothing; and the value of that consumed by running fires during the same period, without benefit even to thieves, was probably over two hundred millions of dollars. Railroad tracks were just . The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn." John Muir, The Mountains of California tags: energy , mountains , nature 1227 likes Like Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Muir Woods National Monument, Download the official NPS app before your next visit. The American Forests John Muir ALDO LEOPOLD'S LAND ETHIC IN FORESTRY; 5. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/234. In Switzerland, after many laws like our own had been found wanting, the Swiss forest school was established in 1865, and soon after the Federal Forest Law was enacted, which is binding over nearly two thirds of the country. In the settlement and civilization of the country, bread more than timber or beauty was wanted; and in the blindness of hunger, the early settlers, claiming Heaven as their guide, regarded Gods trees as only a larger kind of pernicious weeds, extremely hard to get rid of. > Muir walked through these groves of giant sequoias and thought them to be among the most fascinating of ecosystems certainly worth whatever protection humans could afford them. Nevertheless, under this act wealthy corporations have fraudulently obtained title to from ten thousand to twenty thousand acres or more. The Civil War had just ended. A large portion of the best timber is thus shattered and destroyed, and, with the huge knotty tops, is left in ruins for tremendous fires that kill every tree within their range, great and small. As soon as a redwood is cut down or burned it sends up a crowd of eager, hopeful shoots, which, if allowed to grow, would in a few decades attain a height of a hundred feet, and the strongest of them would finally become giants as great as the original tree. Theres always a market for bear grease, and sometimes you can sell the hams. John Muir was born in Dunbar, Scotland on April 21, 1838, as the oldest son in religious shopkeepers family. The Arctic Refuge is a crucial refuge as it is one of the few left in the Arctic and around the world. So they appeared a few centuries ago when they were rejoicing in wildness. The sempervirens is certainly the taller of the two. John Muir (1838-1914) was born in Scotland and emigrated to Wisconsin as a young boy. Our annual Brave Thinkers list, an interview with Mike Bloomberg, the strangest potential threat to the president, the Army's culture of mediocrity, Benjamin Schwarz on the end of jazz, and more, The week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? In the nature of things they had to give place to better cattle, though the change might have been made without barbarous wickedness. About seventy million acres it still owns, enough for all the country, if wisely used. Then he chops into one after another of the pines, until he finds one that he feels sure will split freely, cuts this down, saws off a section four feet long, splits it, and from this first cut, perhaps seven feet in diameter, he gets shakes enough for a cabin and its furniture, walls, roof, door, bedstead, table, and stool. Through his book Travels in Alaska, I learned about the formation of Glacier Bay and Muir's exploration of that twinned body of water I called home for two summers. And you are your own boss in my business, too, if the bears aint too big and too many for you. No place is too good for good men, and still there is room. Gigantic second and third growth trees are found in the redwoods, forming magnificent temple-like circles around charred ruins more than a thousand years old. Though far less abundant than the redwood, it is, fortunately, less accessible, extending along the western flank of the Sierra in a partially interrupted belt about two hundred and fifty miles long, at a height of from four to eight thousand feet above the sea. But this priceless land has been patented, and nothing can be done now about the crazy bargain. For many a century after the ice-ploughs were melted, nature fed them and dressed them every day; working like a man, a loving, devoted, painstaking gardener; fingering every leaf and flower and mossy furrowed bole; bending, trimming, modeling, balancing, painting them with the loveliest colors; bringing over them now clouds with cooling shadows and showers, now sunshine; fanning them with gentle winds and rustling their leaves; exercising them in every fibre with storms, and pruning them; loading them with flowers and fruit, loading them with snow, and ever making them more beautiful as the years rolled by. Listen to the trailer for Holy Week. Of the total area of government forests, perhaps 70,000,000 acres, 55,000,000 acres have been brought under the control of the forestry department, a larger area than that of all our national parks and reservations. The effect of the present confused, discriminating, and unjust system has been to place almost the whole population in opposition to the government; and as conclusive of its futility, as shown by Mr. Bowers, we need only state that during the seven years from 1881 to 1887 inclusive the value of the timber reported stolen from the government lands was $36,719,935, and the amount recovered was $478,073, while the cost of the services of special agents alone was $455,000, to which must be added the expense of the trials. Well, it didn't happen by accident or guesswork. Conservation in the United States can be traced back to the 19th century with the formation of the first National Park. U.S. Only the forests of the West are significant in size and value, and these, although still great, are rapidly vanishing. The special land agents employed by the General Land Office to protect the public domain from timber depredations are supposed to collect testimony to sustain prosecution, and to superintend such prosecution on behalf of the government, which is represented by the district attorneys. President Roosevelt's concern for the environment was influenced by American naturalists, such as John Muir, and by his own political appointees, including Gifford Pinchot, Chief of Forestry. The remnant protected will yield plenty of timber, a perennial harvest for every right use, without further diminution of its area, and will continue to cover the springs of the rivers that rise in the mountains and give irrigating waters to the dry valleys at their feet, prevent wasting floods and be a blessing to everybody forever. -John Muir The forests of America, however slighted by man, must have been a great delight to God; for they were the best he ever planted. In decrying the destruction of woodlands by loggers, settlers, and industrialists, Muir, the father of Americas conservation movement, advanced the notion that natural resources ought to be preservedan idea that spawned vast new parks as well as the creation of the U.S. Forest Service. That a change from robbery and ruin to a permanent rational policy is urgently needed nobody with the slightest knowledge of American forests will deny. Any fool can destroy trees. He was a Scottish-American environmentalist, naturalist, and writer who is best known as the founder of the Sierra Club and one of the earliest promotors of the national parks. He also realized how fragile nature was; how peoples impact on the land, through grazing, lumbering and commercial developments, was slowly destroying all the beauty in the wilderness. In no other way than under some one of these laws can a citizen of the United States make any use of the public forests. It has, therefore, as shown by Mr. Pinchot, refused to deliver its forests to more or less speedy destruction by permitting them to pass into private ownership. But there is not a single specimen of the redwood in any national park. Sapling poles form the frame of the airy building, usually about six feet by eight in size, on which the shakes are nailed, with the edges overlapping. America is one of the wealthiest Continue reading Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged John Muir, The American Forests | 1 Comment Visit Muir Woods National Monument, located in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. The provisions of the code concerning private woodlands are substantially these: No private owner may clear his woodlands without giving notice to the government at least four months in advance, and the forest service may forbid the clearing on the following grounds: to maintain the soil on mountains, to defend the soil against erosion and flooding by rivers or torrents, to insure the existence of springs and watercourses, to protect the dunes and seashore, etc. Muir served as the club's president until his death in 1914, and today, the Sierra Club boasts more than 3 . Merely what belongs to all alike is reserved, and every acre that is left should be held together under the federal government as a basis for a general policy of administration for the public good. Trees go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far! Since then, critics both international and domestic, but mostly from within the environmental movement, have criticized the idea of wilderness. As a boy, Muir was "fond of everything that was wild" (My Boyhood and Youth 30) and took great pleasure in the outdoors. John Muir; At Home in the Wild. Find many great new & used options and get the best deals for JOHN MUIR : Nature Writings by The Library Of America (1997, HC/DJ) at the best online prices at eBay! Muir made extended journeys throughout America, observing both scientifically and enthusiastically the beauties of the wilderness. Then he strikes off into the virgin woods, where the sugar-pine, king of all the hundred species of pines in the world in size and beauty, towers on the open sunny slopes of the Sierra in the fullness of its glory. The American Forests by John Muir (1901) . Every tree heard the bodeful sound, and pillars of smoke gave the sign in the sky, Many of natures five hundred kinds of wild trees had to make way for orchards and cornfields. The first few thousands he sells or trades at the nearest mill or store, getting provisions in exchange. But when the steel axe of the white man rang out in the startled air their doom was sealed. Have you ever wondered why your favorite National Park is surrounded by a National Forest? The redwood is restricted to the Coast Range, and the big tree to the Sierra. Thus, with abundance of fuel, shelter and comfort by his own fireside are secured. After the Atlantic coast from Maine to Georgia had been mostly cleared and scorched into melancholy ruins, the overflowing multitude of bread and money seekers poured over the Alleghanies into the fertile middle West, spreading ruthless devastation ever wider and farther over the rich valley of the Mississippi and the vast shadowy pine region about the Great Lakes. John Muir (1838-1914), the great naturalist and founder of the Sierra Club, has long been a favorite of mine. Author: SAISD Created Date: 06/16/2016 20:10:00 Last modified by: SAISD In India systematic forest management was begun about forty years ago, under difficulties presented by the character of the country, the prevalence of running fires, opposition from lumbermen, settlers, etc. Of course a way had to be cleared through the woods. John Muir. To Muir, these forests are a true creation by God himself--everlasting, plentiful, and can feed every man and . Listen to the trailer for. Here, in The Mountains of California, is the first time the phrase Range . To the southward stretched dark, level-topped cypresses in knobby, tangled swamps, grassy savannas in the midst of them like lakes of light, groves of gay sparkling spice-trees, magnolias and palms, glossy-leaved and blooming and shining continually. John Muir, (born April 21, 1838, Dunbar, East Lothian, Scotlanddied December 24, 1914, Los Angeles, California, U.S.), Scottish-born American naturalist, writer, and advocate of U.S. forest conservation, who was largely responsible for the establishment of Sequoia National Park and Yosemite National Park, which are located in California. President Teddy Roosevelt was profoundly influenced by Muir and the conservation movement. Travelers through the West in summer are not likely to forget the fire-work displayed along the various railway tracks. (Boston, 1901), chapter 10, "The American Forests." Originally published as John Muir, "The American Forests," Atlantic Monthly 80 (August 1897): 145-57. The trees are felled, and about half of each giant is left on the ground to be converted into smoke and ashes; the better half is sawed into choice lumber and sold to citizens of the United States or to foreigners: thus robbing the country of its glory and impoverishing it without right benefit to anybody, a bad, black business from beginning to end. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada of California, have been read by millions. The fact is, it was all started over 100 years ago by two men I like to refer to as the founding fathers of America's public lands. The week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? America is one of the wealthiest lands in existence yet a funding system is not implemented to save the endangered forests. John Muir wrote a great essay, known as the "The American Forest" which spoke about the great beauty of nature and Chief Seattle gave a great speech known as the " Environmentalist Statement" which spoke about sustainability and the respect we need to provide and invoke. Still, in the long run the world does not move backward. An exception would seem to be found in the case of our forests, which have been mismanaged rather long, and now come desperately near being like smashed eggs and spilt milk. John Muir Lesson for Kids: Facts & Biography 2022-10-26. Every other civilized nation in the world has been compelled to care for its forests, and so must we if waste and destruction are not to go on to the bitter end, leaving America as barren as Palestine or Spain. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyedchased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones It took more than three thousand years to make some of the trees in these Western woodstrees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra. The plan was usually as follows: A mill company desirous of getting title to a large body of redwood or sugar-pine land first blurred the eyes and ears of the land agents, and then hired men to enter the land they wanted, and immediately deed it to the company after a nominal compliance with the law; false swearing in the wilderness against the government being held of no account. Last summer, in the Rocky Mountains, I saw six fires started by sparks from a locomotive within a distance of three miles, and nobody was in sight to prevent them from spreading. During a mans life only saplings can be grown, in the place of the old trees tens of centuries old that have been destroyed. Read more from, Butterfield & Co.: In Two Parts. Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries since Christ's time-and long before that-God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, avalanches, and a thousand straining, leveling tempests and floods; but he cannot save them from fools,-only Uncle Sam can do that.''. A leaf, a flower, a stone - the simple beauty of nature filled John Muir with joy. Muir Inlet and Muir Glacier are both named for him. Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike - John Muir, 1869. 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