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. He concluded that all life forms have inherent significance and the right to exist. On account of the superior skill of our workmen, advantages of climate, and the kind of trees, the charring is generally deeper along our line, and the ashes are deeper, and the confusion and desolation displayed can never be rivaled. 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. Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries since Christs timeand long before thatGod 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 foolsonly Uncle Sam can do that. Posted on February 26, 2013 by Nathaniel Cowper. 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 . Shot em on the Joaquin, tied em in dozens by the neck, and shipped em to San Francisco. The redwood is the glory of the Coast Range. Flying Spur Press, Yosemite, California. 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. The sempervirens is certainly the taller of the two. A famous quotation where Muir refers to the Sierra as the "Range of Light" is found within this chapter. 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. 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. 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. Katherine S. Talmadge. John Muir in Yosemite. But the state woodlands are not allowed to lie idle. Emerson says that things refuse to be mismanaged long. 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. They buy no land, pay no taxes, dwell in a paradise with no forbidding angel either from Washington or from heaven. So we confidently believe it will be with our great national parks and forest reservations. 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. Word Count: 490. 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. 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. . . American forester, the first Chief of the US Forest Service and his family was the financial backer for the country's first forestry school (at Yale University), so there can be no doubt where the profession of forestry locates itself in the Muir-Pinchot debate. 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. 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. John Muir; At Home in the Wild. The ground will be glad to feed them, and the pines will come down from the mountains for their homes as willingly as the cedars came from Lebanon for Solomons temple. But the felled timber is not worked up into firewood for the engines and into lumber for the companys use; it is left lying in vulgar confusion, and is fired from time to time by sparks from locomotives or by the workmen camping along the line. 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. University of Northern Iowa UNI ScholarWorks Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate College 2016 Three men in the wilderness: Ideas and concepts of A Wind-Storm in the Forests. Muir ended his life living in the care of his Chinese employees. by man, must have been a great delight to. Basically, Muir's essay is a moment by moment account of one of his outings in the California . 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. He played a significant role in preserving and protecting important areas of our country. 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. No place is too good for good men, and still there is room. Muir enumerates the forest regulations of the principal countries of the world, and then reviews the abuses this country has allowed, detailing the fraudulent methods used by the timber thieves to gain title to thousands of forested acres. Timber is as necessary as bread, and no scheme of management failing to recognize and properly provide for this want can possibly be maintained. The first few thousands he sells or trades at the nearest mill or store, getting provisions in exchange. 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. 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. Muir strategically uses God to appeal to the readers of the time. Home | Twenty or thirty years ago, shakes, a kind of long boardlike shingles split with a mallet and a frow, were in great demand for covering barns and sheds, and many are used still in preference to common shingles, especially those made from the sugar-pine, which do not warp or crack in the hottest sunshine. Yet the dawn of a new day in forestry is breaking. 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. 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. Since then, critics both international and domestic, but mostly from within the environmental movement, have criticized the idea of wilderness. . Conservation in the United States can be traced back to the 19th century with the formation of the first National Park. So they appeared a few centuries ago when they were rejoicing in wildness. Muir enumerates the forest regulations of the principal countries of the world, and then reviews the abuses this country has allowed, detailing the fraudulent methods used by the timber thieves to gain title to thousands of forested acres. 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. Of all the magnificent coniferous forests around the Great Lakes, once the property of the United States, scarcely any belong to it now. All the pine needles and rootlets and blades of grass, and the fallen decaying trunks of trees, are dams, storing the bounty of the clouds and dispensing it in perennial life-giving streams, instead of allowing it to gather suddenly and rush headlong in short-lived devastating floods. 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. President Theodore Roosevelt was one of the most powerful voices in the history of American conservation. Even the fires of the Indians and the fierce shattering lightning seemed to work together only for good in clearing spots here and there for smooth garden prairies, and openings for sunflowers seeking the light. Selecting a favorable spot for a cabin near a meadow with a stream, he unpacks his animal and stakes it out on the meadow. Uncle Sam is not often called a fool is business matters, yet he had sold millions of acres of timber land at two dollars and a half an acre on which a single tree was worth more than a hundred dollars. God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease, and avalanches; but he cannot save them from fools, only Uncle Sam can do that.. Tule Joe made five hundred dollars last winter on mallard and teal. 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. John Muir was an early proponent of a view we still hold todaythat much of California was pristine, untouched wilderness before the arrival of Europeans. 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! 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 in the Sierra Nevada mountains 1) The Sierra Nevada. It is not generally known that, notwithstanding the immense quantities of timber cut every year for foreign and home markets and mines, from five to ten times as much is destroyed as is used, chiefly by running forest fires that only the federal government can stop. The forest service does not rest satisfied with the present proportion of woodland, but looks to planting the best forest trees it can find in any country, if likely to be useful and to thrive in Japan. David Suzuki, The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature. 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. Any fool can destroy trees. 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. He wrote many magazine articles and books, inspiring other people to love nature and drawing attention to the need to protect the environment. 341, v. 6, pp. Bright seas made its border with wave embroidery and icebergs; gray deserts were outspread in the middle of it, mossy tundras on the north, savannas on the south, and blooming prairies and plains; while lakes and rivers shone through all the vast forests and openings, and happy birds and beasts gave delightful animation. His visit with the naturalist had a tremendous impact on his political actions. He explains that "any fool can destroy trees" as "they cannot run away" (Muir, 2006, p. 364). Not a mountain is left in the landscape. 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. 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. 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. Its a mighty good business, and youre your own boss, and the whole things fun.. Theres big money in it, and your grub costs nothing. Listen to the trailer for. Muir served as the club's president until his death in 1914, and today, the Sierra Club boasts more than 3 . John Muir. 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. The legitimate demands on the forests that have passed into private ownership, as well as those in the hands of the government, are increasing every year with the rapid settlement and upbuilding of the country, but the methods of lumbering are as yet grossly wasteful. As he grew older, Muir became increasingly excited about what plants and nature could teach him. Over nearly all of the more accessible slopes of the Sierra and Cascade mountains in southern Oregon, at a height of from three to six thousand feet above the sea, and for a distance of about six hundred miles, this waste and confusion extends. The American Forests by John Muir (1901) . Many of his ideas merely echoed the thoughts of earlier deists and Romantics, especially Thoreau, but he articu- lated them with an intensity and enthusiasm that commanded widespread attention. 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. 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. 1993. 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. But when the steel axe of the white man rang out in the startled air their doom was sealed. The abstract is typically a short summary of the . 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.
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