'Yes, John Muir; and you know I promised to return and visit you in about twenty-five years, and though I am a little latesix or seven yearsI've done the best I could . Muir Inlet and Muir Glacier are both named for him. It seems, therefore, that almost every civilized nation can give us a lesson on the management and care of forests. The American Forests Appendix Index List of Illustrations Sequoias, Mariposa Grove [bigger] Like 0. Free shipping for many products! Gold, gold, gold! Shot em on the Joaquin, tied em in dozens by the neck, and shipped em to San Francisco. 1971. Accordingly, with no eye to the future, these pious destroyers waged interminable forest wars; chips flew thick and fast; trees in their beauty fell crashing by millions, smashed to confusion, and the smoke of their burning has been rising to heaven more than two hundred years. Taking from the government is with them the same as taking from nature, and their consciences flinch no more in cutting timber from the wild forests than in drawing water from a lake or river. Mere destroyers, however, tree-killers, spreading death and confusion in the fairest groves and gardens ever planted, let the government hasten to cast them out and make an end of them. John Muir in the Sierra Nevada mountains World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future: From One Earth to One World (Brundtland Report) 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. O ver 150 years ago, John Muir set out on a thousand mile journey across the US, from Indiana to the Gulf of Mexico, on foot. 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. Lerner Publications Company, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1992. President Theodore Roosevelt was one of the most powerful voices in the history of American conservation. The abstract is typically a short summary of the contents of the document. Muir emigrated from Scotland with his family to Wisconsin in 1849. 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. They are invited to heaven, and may well be allowed in America. Once, in a company of this kind, I heard a man say, as he peacefully smoked his pipe: Boys, as soon as this jobs done Im goin into the duck business. The Land Ethic Aldo Leopold Part II: Two Philosophical Issues in Forestry Ethics MULTIPLE VALUES IN FORESTS . Listen to the trailer for Holy Week. 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. 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. See also: no. His visit with the naturalist had a tremendous impact on his political actions. Hence they went wavering northward over icy Alaska, brave spruce and fir, poplar and birch, by the coasts and the rivers, to within sight of the Arctic Ocean. Ginger Wadsworth. The Forests of the Yosemite Park . Muir's conservation efforts saved many forests and natural areas for all of us. 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,. Savage's men fired indiscriminately into the Ahwahneechee camp, a people who had called this valley their home for centuries. Wide-branching oak and elm in endless variety, walnut and maple, chestnut and beech, ilex and locust, touching limb to limb, spread a leafy translucent canopy along the coast of the Atlantic over the wrinkled folds and ridges of the Alleghanies, a green billowy sea in summer, golden and purple in autumn, pearly gray like a steadfast frozen mist of interlacing branches and sprays in leafless, restful winter. 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. John Muir, Naturalist: A Concise Biography of the Great Naturalist. 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. 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. John Muir (1838-1914) was born in Scotland and emigrated to Wisconsin as a young boy. . 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 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. Every train rolls on through dismal smoke and barbarous melancholy ruins; and the companies might well cry in their advertisements: Come! Read more from, Butterfield & Co.: In Two Parts. Theres always a market for bear grease, and sometimes you can sell the hams. Under the timber and stone act, of the same date, land in the Pacific States and Nevada, valuable mainly for timber, and unfit for cultivation if the timber is removed, can be purchased for two dollars and a half an acre, under certain restrictions. In his article, "The American Forests," John Muir describes the issues with the Timber and Stone Act of 1878. So we confidently believe it will be with our great national parks and forest reservations. 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. 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. Conservation generally refers to the act of consciously and efficiently using land and/or its natural resources. 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. 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. The American Forests by John Muir (1901) . Ours is the blackest. There will be a period of indifference on the part of the rich, sleepy with wealth, and of the toiling millions, sleepy with poverty, most of whom never saw a forest; a period of screaming protest and objection from the plunderers, who are as unconscionable and enterprising as Satan. Drought and barrenness would follow. Let them be welcomed still as nature welcomes them, to the woods as well as to the prairies and plains. 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. 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. The sempervirens is certainly the taller of the two. Of all the destroyers that infest the woods the shake-maker seems the happiest. Muir made extended journeys throughout America, observing both scientifically and enthusiastically the beauties of the wilderness. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/234. 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. 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. He is best known for his work as a conservationist, particularly his role in the establishment of Yosemite National Park in California. They buy no land, pay no taxes, dwell in a paradise with no forbidding angel either from Washington or from heaven. Chuck Roe -A Sesquicentennial Account of John Muir's 1,000 Mile Walk - A review of the landscape 150 years after Muir's walk, with a focus on the progress of land conservation and identification of the many publicly-accessible, protected natural areas now located immediately along Muir's route. Roe's intent was to observe and describe the publicly accessible parks, nature preserves, forests . It is not a book of forestry, but the forest is the most . 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. Honest citizens see that only the rights of the government are being trampled, not those of the settlers. The redwood is restricted to the Coast Range, and the big tree to the Sierra. Railroad tracks were just . His lifelong passion for hiking began when he hiked 1,000 miles from Indianapolis to the Gulf of Mexico in. The United States government has always been proud of the welcome it has extended to good men of every nation, seeking freedom and homes and bread. Another of the company, a bushy-bearded fellow, with a trace of brag in his voice, drawled out: Bird business is well enough for some, but bear is my game, with a deer and a California lion thrown in now and then for change. 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. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada of California, have been read by millions. 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. Emerson says that things refuse to be mismanaged long. Yet the dawn of a new day in forestry is breaking. Muir's nature was a pristine refuge from the city. 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. (Boston, 1901), chapter 10, "The American Forests." Originally published as John Muir, "The American Forests," Atlantic Monthly 80 (August 1897): 145-57. Every tree heard the bodeful sound, and pillars of smoke gave the sign in the sky. 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. 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. In 1849, Muir and his family immigrated to Wisconsin to homestead. This can be in the form of setting aside tracts of land for protection from hunting or urban development, or it can take the form of using less resources such as . From an early age, Muir was fascinated by nature and was eager to learn about his environment. 357-[393]. Under its provisions, the cantons must appoint and pay the number of suitably educated foresters required for the fulfillment of the forest law; and in the organization of a normally stocked forest, the object of first importance must be the cutting each year of an amount of timber equal to the total annual increase, and no more. So they appeared a few centuries ago when they were rejoicing in wildness. His family did not have enough money to send him to school, so after completing his daily farm chores, Muir spent his spare time teaching himself algebra and geometry. Katherine S. Talmadge. Each article originally printed in this magazine is available here, complete and unedited from the historical print. Enthralled by nature from a young age, Roosevelt cherished and promoted our nation's landscapes and wildlife. Accordingly, with no eye to the future, these pious destroyers waged interminable forest wars, 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 So far our government has done nothing effective with its forests, though the best in the world, but is like a rich and foolish spendthrift who has inherited a magnificent estate in perfect order, and then has left his rich fields and meadows, forests and parks, to be sold and plundered and wasted at will, depending on their inexhaustible abundance, Emerson says that things refuse to be mismanaged long. 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 shared his love of the outdoors through writing and inspired people to protect our country's wild places like Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Sequoia & King's Canyon . No other route on this continent so fully illustrates the abomination of desolation. Such a claim would be reasonable, as each seems the worst, whatever route you chance to take. The conservation/preservation battle first played on the 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. But the state woodlands are not allowed to lie idle. In the East and along the northern Pacific coast, where the rainfall is abundant, comparatively few care keenly what becomes of the trees as long as fuel and lumber are not noticeably dear. The volume is from the press of Houghton . Muir, John, "The American Forests" (1897). travel our way. After several legal battles, Congress established Yosemite National Park in 1890 in order to protect thousands of acres of forest land from further destruction. 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. A champion of America's great writers and timeless works, Library of America guides readers in finding and exploring the exceptional writing that reflects the nation's history and culture. 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. 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? 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 . He closes his long essay with his now-famous statements: "Any fool can destroy trees. 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. The gigantea attains a greater girth, and is heavier, more noble in port, and more sublimely beautiful. The half dozen transcontinental railroad companies advertise the beauties of their lines in gorgeous many-colored folders, each claiming its as the scenic route. The route of superior desolation the smoke, dust, and ashes route would be a more truthful description. In most mills only the best portions of the best trees are used, while the ruins are left on the ground to feed great fires which kill much of what is left of the less desirable timber, together with the seedlings on which the permanence of the forest depends. Twenty-First Century Books, New York, New York. On the contrary, they are made to produce as much timber as is possible without spoiling them. He was a strong voice in preserving the area known today as the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. The Indians with stone axes could do them no more harm than could gnawing beavers and browsing moose. Since then, critics both international and domestic, but mostly from within the environmental movement, have criticized the idea of wilderness. 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. At least none is in sight from the lowlands, and they all might as well be on the moon, as far as scenery is concerned. This means that less than 50,000 acres have been planted with stunted, woebegone, almost hopeless sprouts of trees, while at the same time the government has allowed millions of acres of the grandest forest trees to be stolen, or destroyed, or sold for nothing. There is none to say them nay. 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