Home | All sorts of local laws and regulations have been tried and found wanting, and the costly lessons of our own experience, as well as that of every civilized nation, show conclusively that the fate of the remnant of our forests is in the hands of the federal government, and that if the remnant is to be saved at all, it must be saved quickly. Muir is credited with both the creation of the National Park System and the establishment of the Sierra Club. His family immigrated to America in 1849 and settled into farm life in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. In the nature of things they had to give place to better cattle, though the change might have been made without barbarous wickedness. Drought and barrenness would follow. "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. 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. But in the Rocky Mountains and California and Arizona, where the forests are inflammable, and where the fertility of the lowlands depends upon irrigation, public opinion is growing stronger every year in favor of permanent protection by the federal government of all the forests that cover the sources of the streams. A leaf, a flower, a stone - the simple beauty of nature filled John Muir with joy. Even lumbermen in these regions, long accustomed to steal, are now willing and anxious to buy lumber for their mills under cover of law: some possibly from a late second growth of honesty, but most, especially the small mill-owners, simply because it no longer pays to steal where all may not only steal, but also destroy, and in particular because it costs about as much to steal timber for one mill as for ten, and therefore the ordinary lumberman can no longer compete with the large corporations. 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. The enormous logs, too heavy to handle, are blasted into manageable dimensions with gunpowder. 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. Within the pantheon of environmental greats, few match the stature of John Muir. America is one of the wealthiest Continue reading Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged John Muir, The American Forests | 1 Comment The great forests of Northern United States captivated him and fueled . Six of this volume's ten chapters are devoted to Muir's beloved Yosemite, exploring the forests, fountains, streams, and animals of the Sierra Nevada. 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. 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. American forests! Many of the miners find that timber is already becoming scarce and dear on the denuded hills around their mills, and they too are asking for protection of forests, at least against fire. 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,. University of Northern Iowa UNI ScholarWorks Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate College 2016 Three men in the wilderness: Ideas and concepts of An 1867 accident caused him to abandon an industrial career and devote himself to nature. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. And you are your own boss in my business, too, if the bears aint too big and too many for you. 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. My Account | 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. 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. Carter argues that it is the duty of everyone to preserve the Arctic Refuge rather than dig holes in it to extract oil. 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. The largest sawmills ever built are busy along its seaward border, with all the modern improvements, but so immense is the yield per acre it will be long ere the supply is exhausted. T he Mountains of California, published in 1894, is John Muir's first book. The outcries we hear against forest reservations come mostly from thieves who are wealthy and steal timber by wholesale. 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. Golden Gate National Recreation Area, Muir Woods National Monument, Download the official NPS app before your next visit. He wrote many magazine articles and books, inspiring other people to love nature and drawing attention to the need to protect the environment. An extension of this law by the passage of the act of March 2, 1831, provided that if any person should cut live-oak or red cedar trees or other timber from the lands of the United States for any other purpose than the construction of the navy, such person should pay a fine not less than triple the value of the timber cut, and be imprisoned for a period not exceeding twelve months. By looking at their views and uses of language we can gain a better understanding of the environmental movement both during their lifetimes and as it . According to the everlasting laws of righteousness, even the fraudful buyers at less than one per cent of its value are making little or nothing, on account of fierce competition. 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 1913, Congress passed a law that approved the construction of the dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley. 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. 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. 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. 1993. John Muir. 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. Our National Parks, by John Muir (1901, c. (1901)) - John Muir Writings . Listen to the trailer for Holy Week. But timber-thieves of the Western class are seldom convicted, for the good reason that most of the jurors who try such cases are themselves as guilty as those on trial. The abstract is typically a short summary of the . 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. How strong a voice that metal has! During a mans life only saplings can be grown, in the place of the old trees tens of centuries old that have been destroyed. Shot em on the Joaquin, tied em in dozens by the neck, and shipped em to San Francisco. These two sequoias are all that are known to exist in the world, though in former geological times the genus was common and had many species. It grows sturdily on all kinds of soil and rocks, and, protected by a mail of . Each article originally printed in this magazine is available here, complete and unedited from the historical print. The American Forests John Muir ALDO LEOPOLD'S LAND ETHIC IN FORESTRY; 5. Anyhow, these vigorous, almost immortal trees are killed at last, and black stumps are now their only monuments over most of the chopped and burned areas. John Muir in the Sierra Nevada mountains He closes his long essay with his now-famous statements: "Any fool can destroy trees. 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 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 diameterlordly monarchs proclaiming the gospel of beauty like apostles. 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. 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. > OUR NATIONAL PARKs.-Under this title Mr. John Muir has brought together several papers originally published in the Atlantic Monthly. 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 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. John Muir (1838-1914) was born in Scotland and emigrated to Wisconsin as a young boy. 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. As a child, he designed many inventions that would ease the familys work. Every tree heard the bodeful sound, and pillars of smoke gave the sign in the sky. But light is surely coming, and the friends of destruction will preach and bewail in vain. "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. The disappearance of the forests in the first place, it is claimed, may be traced in most cases directly to mountain pasturage. The redwood is one of the few conifers that sprout from the stump and roots, and it declares itself willing to begin immediately to repair the damage of the lumberman and also that of the forest-burner. . By the act of March 3, 1875, all land-grant and right-of-way railroads are authorized to take timber from the public lands adjacent to their lines for construction purposes; and they have taken it with a vengeance, destroying a hundred times more than they have used, mostly by allowing fires to run into the woods. The conservation/preservation battle first played on the "No prisoners were taken," recalled the witness to these events . As a boy, Muir was "fond of everything that was wild" (My Boyhood and Youth 30) and took great pleasure in the outdoors. The Yosemite National Park 4. 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. Of course a way had to be cleared through the woods. Muir is credited with both the creation of the National Park System and the establishment of the Sierra Club. John Muir, Naturalist: A Concise Biography of the Great Naturalist. Most notably, this was John Muir's first published essay (1871). 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. But there is not a single specimen of the redwood in any national park. He played a significant role in preserving and protecting important areas of our country. Under these circumstances, the bawling, blethering oratorical stuff drowns the voice of God himself. Only the forests of the West are significant in size and value, and these, although still great, are rapidly vanishing. 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. Critics including the . 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.. His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada of California, have been read by millions. 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