Old grizzlies I despise, they want cannon to kill em; but the blacks and browns are beauties for grease, and when I get em just right, and draw a bead on em, I fetch em every time. Another said he was going to catch up a lot of mustangs as soon as the rains set in, hitch them to a gang-plough, and go to farming on the San Joaquin plains for wheat. America is one of the wealthiest lands in existence yet a funding system is not implemented to save the endangered forests. The outcries we hear against forest reservations come mostly from thieves who are wealthy and steal timber by wholesale. About. The feudal lords valued the woodlands, and enacted vigorous protective laws; and when, in the latest civil war, the Mikado government destroyed the feudal system, it declared the forests that had belonged to the feudal lords to be the property of the state, promulgated a forest law binding on the whole kingdom, and founded a school of forestry in Tokio. This grand tree, Sequoia sempervirens, is surpassed in size only by its near relative, Sequoia gigantea, or big tree, of the Sierra Nevada, if indeed it is surpassed. Starting in the i87os, Muir made exploring wilderness and extoling its values a way of life. The sempervirens is certainly the taller of the two. During the course of his political term, Roosevelt set aside 148 million acres of forest reserves, created 50 regions for the protection of wildlife, founded 16 national monuments and established 5 new national parks. John Muir. 1971. Here, in The Mountains of California, is the first time the phrase Range . They have disappeared in lumber and smoke, mostly smoke, and the government got not one cent for them; only the land they were growing on was considered valuable, and two and a half dollars an acre was charged for it. Word Count: 490. After several legal battles, Congress established Yosemite National Park in 1890 in order to protect thousands of acres of forest land from further destruction. The passage of the Wilderness Act was an historically important event in American environmental politics, which tied the fate of much of America's public lands to disputes over the meaning of wilderness. His lifelong passion for hiking began when he hiked 1,000 miles from Indianapolis to the Gulf of Mexico in. The wonderful advance made in the last few years, in creating four national parks in the West, and thirty forest reservations, embracing nearly forty million acres; and in the planting of the borders of streets and highways and spacious parks in all the great cities, to satisfy the natural taste and hunger for landscape beauty and righteousness that God has put, in some measure, into every human being and animal, shows the trend of awakening public opinion. Listen to the trailer for Holy Week. The great forests of Northern United States captivated him and fueled . On the other hand, about one half of the fifty million francs spent on forestry has been given to engineering works, to make the replanting of denuded areas possible. But most preferred the shake business, until something more profitable and as sure could be found, with equal comfort and independence. Muir, John, "The American Forests" (1897). 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. They might run into the adjacent forests and burn the timber from hundreds of square miles; not a man in the State would care to spend an hour in fighting them, as long as his own fences and buildings were not threatened. Thus every mill is a centre of destruction far more severe from waste and fire than from use. Let them be as free to pick gold and gems from the hills, to cut and hew, dig and plant, for homes and bread, as the birds are to pick berries from the wild bushes, and moss and leaves for nests. Aldo Leopold, Thinking Like a Mountain. But the state woodlands are not allowed to lie idle. For it must be told again and again, and be burningly borne in mind, that just now, while protective measures are being deliberated languidly, destruction and use are speeding on faster and farther every day. A famous quotation where Muir refers to the Sierra as the "Range of Light" is found within this chapter. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada of California, have been read by millions. Katherine S. Talmadge. In the clearings of one of the largest mills on the coast we found thirty men at work, last summer, cutting off redwood shoots in the dark of the moon, claiming that all the stumps and roots cleared at this auspicious time would send up no more shoots. "The forests of America, however slighted by man, must have been a great delight to God; for they were the best he ever planted." He described trees with a diameter of twenty feet as "lordly. 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. Upon this old law, as Mr. Bowers points out, having the construction of a wooden navy in view, the United States government has to-day chiefly to rely in protecting its timber throughout the arid regions of the West, where none of the naval timber which the law had in mind is to be found. Its a mighty good business, and youre your own boss, and the whole things fun.. The annual appropriation for so-called protection service is hardly sufficient to keep twenty-five timber agents in the field, and as far as any efficient protection of timber is concerned these agents themselves might as well be timber. In "The American Forests", John Muir's purpose is to reveal the disloyalty that Americans have towards their agriculture. In 1879, Muir made the first of his seven trips to Alaska, where he risked his life exploring the glaciers in Glacier Bay to find evidence of glacial activity. It took more than three thousand years to make some of the trees in these Western woods, trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra. It is the citizens of this country who are robbing from and destroying the beautiful forest. > To show the results of the timber-planting act, it need only be stated that of the 38,000,000 acres entered under it, less than 1,000,000 acres have been patented. Conservation in the United States can be traced back to the 19th century with the formation of the first National Park. Carter argues that it is the duty of everyone to preserve the Arctic Refuge rather than dig holes in it to extract oil. It has been shown over and over again that if these mountains were to be stripped of their trees and underbrush, and kept bare and sodless by hordes of sheep and the innumerable fires the shepherds set, besides those of the millmen, prospectors, shake-makers, and all sorts of adventurers, both lowlands and mountains would speedily become little better than deserts, compared with their present beneficent fertility. Working in concert with many individuals and organizations, the Roosevelt administration was responsible for the following: the Newlands Act of 1902 . He closes his long essay with his now-famous statements: "Any fool can destroy trees. Flying Spur Press, Yosemite, California. A Wind-Storm in the Forests. Muir's conservation efforts saved many forests and natural areas for all of us. In crafting a sense of place for the forests, Muir is passively working his readers . Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Muir Woods National Monument, Download the official NPS app before your next visit. And when he was tired wading in the sloughs and touched with rheumatiz, he just knocked off on ducks, and went to the Contra Costa hills for dove and quail. John Muirthe surprise star of Ken Burns's recent PBS documentary, The National Parks is most remembered for founding the Sierra Club in 1911 and for the preservation of Yosemite, but another of his great legacies is his prose, which introduced a new vocabulary to the genre of nature writing. The week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? Free shipping for many products! Drought and barrenness would follow. . The most significant battle that Muir and the Sierra Club ever fought was over the damming of Yosemites Hetch Hetchy Valley. Muir Inlet and Muir Glacier are both named for him. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/234. Conservation generally refers to the act of consciously and efficiently using land and/or its natural resources. 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. 1993. The whole sky, with clouds, sun, moon, and stars, is simply blotted out. Had he gone West he would have found out that the sky was not safe; for all through the summer months, over most of the mountain regions, the smoke of mill and forest fires is so thick and black that no sunbeam can pierce it. Here and there in the Southern States there are still considerable areas of timbered government land, but these are comparatively unimportant. 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. So we confidently believe it will be with our great national parks and forest reservations. From an early age, Muir was fascinated by nature and was eager to learn about his environment. Of all the magnificent coniferous forests around the Great Lakes, once the property of the United States, scarcely any belong to it now. the glory of the world! In the administration of its forests, the state righteously considers itself bound to treat them as a trust for the nation as a whole, and to keep in view the common good of the people for all time. The Russian government passed a law in 1888, declaring that clearing is forbidden in protection forests, and is allowed in others only when its effects will not be to disturb the suitable relations which should exist between forest and agricultural lands.. John Muir was one of the country's most famous naturalist and conservationist and Muir Woods, part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area, is named in his honor. Still, in the long run the world does not move backward. In Luke 12 Jesus says, "I've come to bring fire on earth." > not unlike those which confront us now. His visit with the naturalist had a tremendous impact on his political actions. These forests were composed of about five hundred species of trees, all of them in some way useful to man, ranging in size from twenty-five feet in height and less than one foot in diameter at the ground to four hundred feet in height and more than twenty feet in diameter, lordly monarchs proclaiming the gospel of beauty like apostles. The American Forests In decrying the destruction of woodlands by loggers, settlers, and industrialists, Muir, the father of America's conservation movement, advanced the notion that. Then he goes to work sawing and splitting for the market, tying the shakes in bundles of fifty or a hundred. The redwood is the glory of the Coast Range. Theres big money in it, and your grub costs nothing. The enormous logs, too heavy to handle, are blasted into manageable dimensions with gunpowder. Our National Parks, by John Muir (1901, c. (1901)) - John Muir Writings . Visit Muir Woods National Monument, located in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. NOTE: The latest versions of Adobe Reader do not support viewing PDF files within Firefox on Mac OS and if you are using a modern (Intel) Mac, there is no official plugin for viewing PDF files within the browser window. 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. It extends along the western slope, in a nearly continuous belt about ten miles wide, from beyond the Oregon boundary to the south of Santa Cruz, a distance of nearly four hundred miles, and in massive, sustained grandeur and closeness of growth surpasses all the other timber woods of the world. It has been planted and is flourishing over a great part of Europe, and magnificent sections of the aboriginal forests have been reserved as national and state parks, the Mariposa Sequoia Grove, near Yosemite, managed by the State of California, and the General Grant and Sequoia national parks on the Kings, the Kaweah, and Tule rivers, efficiently guarded by a small troop of United States cavalry under the direction of the Secretary of the Interior. Everybody on the dry side of the continent is beginning to find this out, and, in view of the waste going on, is growing more and more anxious for government protection. Land commissioners and Secretaries of the Interior have repeatedly called attention to this ruinous state of affairs, and asked Congress to enact the requisite legislation for reasonable reform. "A wind-storm in the forests" by American naturalist/environmentalist John Muir (1838-1914) was the first Library of America (LOA) story of the week that I ever reviewed here. But, busied with tariffs, etc., Congress has given no heed to these or other appeals, and our forests, the most valuable and the most destructible of all the natural resources of the country, are being robbed and burned more rapidly than ever. 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. The forests of America, however slighted by man, must have been a great delight to God; for they were the best he ever planted. Chapter 2: How is Sustainability a Political Issue? Passionate and . My Account | For years, the conservationists, who wanted to protect the awesome valley in its natural setting, were pitted against the Californians who wanted to dam the valley to create a new and reliable drinking water reservoir. John Muir's 1897 Case for Saving America's Forests - The Atlantic August 1897 Issue Explore Technology The American Forests "God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease,. The Yellowstone National Park 3. -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. While reading the John Muir excerpt from the reader, I was struck with how closely he followed the traditions of Emerson and Thoreau while still expanding on his own style. 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. T he Mountains of California, published in 1894, is John Muir's first book. In its calmer moments in the midst of bewildering hunger and war and restless over-industry, Prussia has learned that the forest plays an important part in human progress, and that the advance in civilization only makes it more indispensable. They are invited to heaven, and may well be allowed in America. He educated Americans about the value of the countrys wilderness, inspiring generations of wilderness advocates. And in the fullness of time it was planted in groves, and belts, and broad, exuberant, mantling forests, with the largest, most varied, most fruitful, and most beautiful trees in the world. After the destructive 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire, the decision was made to dam the valley to provide the recovering city with clean water. Nevertheless, under this act wealthy corporations have fraudulently obtained title to from ten thousand to twenty thousand acres or more. Ginger Wadsworth. In their natural condition, or under wise management, keeping out destructive sheep, preventing fires, selecting the trees that should be cut for lumber, and preserving the young ones and the shrubs and sod of herbaceous vegetation, these forests would be a never failing fountain of wealth and beauty. In 1913, Congress passed a law that approved the construction of the dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley. 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. 331-[365]; no. The abstract is typically a short summary of the contents of the document. Then he advertises, in whatever way he can, that he has excellent sugar-pine shakes for sale, easy of access and cheap. Worn out from this devastating loss, Muir retreated from political life and spent his remaining years writing and spending time with his family.John Muir died in December, 1914. Nevertheless the Andes and the South American forests continued to fascinate his imagination, as his letters show, for many years after he came to California. 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. 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. dwelling in the most beautiful woods, in the most salubrious climate, breathing delightful doors both day and night, drinking cool living water, roses and lilies at their feet in the spring, shedding fragrance and ringing bells as if cheering them on in their desolating work. With a cheap mustang or mule to carry a pair of blankets, a sack of flour, a few pounds of coffee, and an axe, a frow, and a cross-cut saw, the shake-maker ascends the mountains to the pine belt where it is most accessible, usually by some mine or mill road. 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. Savage's men fired indiscriminately into the Ahwahneechee camp, a people who had called this valley their home for centuries. They cover an area of about 29,000,000 acres. U.S. Critics including the . The abstract is typically a short summary of the . > of John Muir and Gifford Pinchot Matthew E. Whitbeck Western Oregon University, wolfen.one79@gmail.com Follow this and additional works at:https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/his . John W. Winkley, M.A., D.D. They went to the woods to escape aspects of. Well, it didn't happen by accident or guesswork. As he grew older, Muir became increasingly excited about what plants and nature could teach him. As is shown by Mr. E. A. Bowers, formerly Inspector of the Public Land Service, the foundation of our protective policy, which has never protected, is an act passed March 1, 1817, which authorized the Secretary of the Navy to reserve lands producing live-oak and cedar, for the sole purpose of supplying timber for the navy of the United States. Let them be welcomed still as nature welcomes them, to the woods as well as to the prairies and plains. But not one denuded acre in a hundred is allowed to raise a new forest growth. you may Download the file to your hard drive. The Sierra Club is the oldest, largest and most influential conservation organization in the United States. Still, in the long run the world does not move backward Light is surely coming, and the friends of destruction will preach and bewail in vain. John Muir was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. Gold, gold, gold! The same thing is true of the mines, which consume and destroy indirectly immense quantities of timber with their innumerable fires, accidental or set to make open ways, and often without regard to how far they run. As a child, he designed many inventions that would ease the familys work. Last summer, of the unrivaled redwood forests of the Pacific Coast Range the United States Forestry Commission could not find a single quarter-section that remained in the hands of the government. The making of the far-famed New York Central Park was opposed by even good men, with misguided pluck, perseverance, and ingenuity; but straight right won its way, and now that park is appreciated. Trees from ten to fifteen feet in diameter and three hundred feet high are not uncommon, and a few attain a height of three hundred and fifty feet, or even four hundred, with a diameter at the base of fifteen to twenty feet or more, while the ground beneath them is a garden of fresh, exuberant ferns, lilies, gaultheria, and rhododendron. With such variety, harmony, and triumphant exuberance, even nature, it would seem, might have rested content with the forests of North America, and planted no more. (Boston, 1901), chapter 10, "The American Forests." Originally published as John Muir, "The American Forests," Atlantic Monthly 80 (August 1897): 145-57. Any fool can destroy trees. by man, must have been a great delight to. 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 Likewise many of natures five hundred kinds of wild trees had to make way for orchards and cornfields. It is a compilation of his own accounts of his travels and journeys, and his explorations and examinations, of the mountain ranges of California, in particular the Sierra Nevada, during the late 1860s to the early 1870s, a time when the wild places in the State where . Not only do the shepherds, at the driest time of the year, set fire to everything that will burn, but the sheep consume every green leaf, not sparing even the young conifers when they are in a starving condition from crowding, and they rake and dibble the loose soil of the mountain sides for the spring floods to wash away, and thus at last leave the ground barren. But light is surely coming, and the friends of destruction will preach and bewail in vain. John Muir was born on April 21, 1838 in the small rural town of Dunbar, Scotland. Sheep-owners and their shepherds also set fires everywhere through the woods in the fall to facilitate the march of their countless flocks the next summer, and perhaps in some places to improve the pasturage. The chief aims of the administration are effective protection of the forests from fire, an efficient system of regeneration, and cheap transportation of the forest products; the results so far have been most beneficial and encouraging. 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. Listen to the trailer for Holy Week. The American Forests Appendix Index List of Illustrations Sequoias, Mariposa Grove [bigger] Like 0. It is the citizens of this country who are robbing from and destroying the beautiful forest. The Yosemite National Park 4. 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. During his lengthy wanderings, Muir contemplated man's relationship to nature. Happy robbers! Muir made extended journeys throughout America, observing both scientifically and enthusiastically the beauties of the wilderness. The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West, chapter 1 of 'Our National Parks' by John Muir (1901). Have you ever wondered why your favorite National Park is surrounded by a National Forest? John Muir (1838 - 1914) was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. Each article originally printed in this magazine is available here, complete and unedited from the historical print. According to Muir, 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 . 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. Being rather partial to trees, I could not resist reading "A wind-storm in the forests" by Scottish-born American naturalist/enviromentalist John Muir (1838-1914) when it lobbed in by email today as this week's Library of America story of the week.Anyone who has been to the stunning Yosemite - or visited the peaceful Muir Woods north of San Francisco - will have heard of John Muir. The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West 2. Surely, then, it should not be wondered at that lovers of their country, bewailing its baldness, are now crying aloud, Save what is left of the forests! Clearing has surely now gone far enough; soon timber will be scarce, and not a grove will be left to rest in or pray in. 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. Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries since Christs 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. And you are your own boss in my business, too, if the bears aint too big and too many for you. Lerner Publications Company, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1992. 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. Every train rolls on through dismal smoke and barbarous melancholy ruins; and the companies might well cry in their advertisements: Come! 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