In "The American Forests", John Muir's purpose is to reveal the disloyalty that Americans have towards their agriculture. 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. But as this groundbreaking book demonstrates, what Muir was really seeing when he admired the grand vistas of Yosemite and the gold and purple flowers carpeting the Central Valley were the fertile gardens of the Sierra Miwok and Valley . travel our way. It is the only genuine Erebus route. At university, Muir focused his studies on chemistry, geology and botany. About seventy million acres it still owns, enough for all the country, if wisely used. 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. While in Alaska, I saw the loveliest forests and scenery I've ever seen. 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. Only by gift or purchase, so far as I know, can the government get back into its possession a single acre of this wonderful forest. About | Madison Grant's nature was the last redoubt of nobility in a levelling and hybridizing democracy. Home 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. In 1849, Muir and his family immigrated to Wisconsin to homestead. 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. The forests of America, however slighted by man, must have been a great delight to God; for they were the best he ever planted. John Muir (/mjr/; April 21, 1838 - December 24, 1914) was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. The first few thousands he sells or trades at the nearest mill or store, getting provisions in exchange. Restless to explore more of the country, he left school for what he would call "the University of the Wilderness. Enthralled by nature from a young age, Roosevelt cherished and promoted our nation's landscapes and wildlife. > Theres big money in it, and your grub costs nothing. T he Mountains of California, published in 1894, is John Muir's first book. World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future: From One Earth to One World (Brundtland Report) 234, Muir describes the beauty of trees in the many varied regions across America as "they appeared a few centuries ago when they were rejoicing in wildness." The Forests of the Yosemite Park . On the contrary, all the brains, religion, and superstition of the neighborhood are brought into play to prevent a new growth. 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. > 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. 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. Muir ended his life living in the care of his Chinese employees. 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. Here, in The Mountains of California, is the first time the phrase Range . 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. 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. Savage's men fired indiscriminately into the Ahwahneechee camp, a people who had called this valley their home for centuries. 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. 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. Its focus is the general geology and characteristics of the Sierra Nevada. 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 great forests of Northern United States captivated him and fueled . Read more from, Butterfield & Co.: In Two Parts. 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. 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. During his lengthy wanderings, Muir contemplated man's relationship to nature. Muir is credited with both the creation of the National Park System and the establishment of the Sierra Club. The outcries we hear against forest reservations come mostly from thieves who are wealthy and steal timber by wholesale. Publisher's Summary During the past twenty-five years, North American forestry has received increasingly vigorous scrutiny. 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 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. John Muir. 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. 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 the nature of things they had to give place to better cattle, though the change might have been made without barbarous wickedness. About this book. 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! The two most fascinating questions about extraterrestrial life are where it is found and what it is like. 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. The Civil War had just ended. And you are your own boss in my business, too, if the bears aint too big and too many for you. The week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? John Muir; At Home in the Wild. 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. Every train rolls on through dismal smoke and barbarous melancholy ruins; and the companies might well cry in their advertisements: Come! Drought and barrenness would follow. 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. From poetry, novels, and memoirs to journalism, crime writing, and science fiction, the more than 300 volumes published by Library of America are widely . As he grew older, Muir became increasingly excited about what plants and nature could teach him. In 1892, Muir and other private citizens banded together and established the Sierra Club to increase awareness about the potential destruction of the countrys wilderness. Any fool can destroy trees. During heavy rainfalls and while the winter accumulations of snow were melting, the larger streams would swell into destructive torrents; cutting deep, rugged-edged gullies, carrying away the fertile humus and soil as well as sand and rocks, filling up and overflowing their lower channels, and covering the lowland fields with raw detritus. 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. 237, pp. 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. Back at the turn of the 20th Century Gifford Pinchot and John Muir had radically contrasting views of how to manage . With the exception of the timber culture act, under which, in consideration of planting a few acres of seedlings, settlers on the treeless plains got 160 acres each, the above is the only legislation aiming to protect and promote the planting of forests. Muir became politically active to protect Yosemite from being threatened by commercial developments. 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. 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. Visit Muir Woods National Monument, located in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. The American Forests by John Muir (1901) . As a boy, Muir was "fond of everything that was wild" (My Boyhood and Youth 30) and took great pleasure in the outdoors. 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. But most preferred the shake business, until something more profitable and as sure could be found, with equal comfort and independence. Type the abstract of the document here. FAQ | Not a mountain is left in the landscape. 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. Railroad tracks were just . Listen to the trailer for. 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.. The gigantea attains a greater girth, and is heavier, more noble in port, and more sublimely beautiful. 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. They went to the woods to escape aspects of. Carter argues that it is the duty of everyone to preserve the Arctic Refuge rather than dig holes in it to extract oil. 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. In "The American Forests", John Muir's purpose is to reveal the disloyalty that Americans have towards their agriculture. "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. 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. Part One, The week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? He closes his long essay with his now-famous statements: "Any fool can destroy trees. Thence still westward swept the forests to right and left around grassy plains and deserts a thousand miles wide: irrepressible hosts of spruce and pine, aspen and willow, nut-pine and juniper, cactus and yucca, caring nothing for drought, extending undaunted from mountain to mountain, over mesa and desert, to join the darkening multitudes of pines that covered the high Rocky ranges and the glorious forests along the coast of the moist and balmy Pacific, where new species of pine, giant cedars and spruces, silver firs and sequoias, kings of their race, growing close together like grass in a meadow, poised their brave domes and spires in the sky three hundred feet above the ferns and the lilies that enameled the ground; towering serene through the long centuries, preaching Gods forestry fresh from heaven. 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. They are four feet long, four inches wide, and about one fourth of an inch thick. This paper looks at the roles that language had in the writings of John Muir, the father of American national parks and Gifford Pinchot, the father of American forest conservation. Listen to the trailer for Holy Week. So they appeared a few centuries ago when they were rejoicing in wildness. Few that fell trees plant them; nor would planting avail much towards getting back anything like the noble primeval forests. The fires, whether accidental or set, are allowed to run into the woods as far as they may, thus assuring comprehensive destruction. He would later be called the godfather of the American environmental movement. 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. The Indians with stone axes could do them no more harm than could gnawing beavers and browsing moose. Free shipping for many products! 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 . He came to the San Francisco area in 1868 and there he discovered the Sierra Mountains. The Land Ethic Aldo Leopold Part II: Two Philosophical Issues in Forestry Ethics MULTIPLE VALUES IN FORESTS . Thus every mill is a centre of destruction far more severe from waste and fire than from use. Of all the destroyers that infest the woods the shake-maker seems the happiest. Muir emigrated from Scotland with his family to Wisconsin in 1849. 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. 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. Muir constantly brings up the burning of the forests. The most significant battle that Muir and the Sierra Club ever fought was over the damming of Yosemites Hetch Hetchy Valley. 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. Muir strategically uses God to appeal to the readers of the time. 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. 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. Thoreau, when contemplating the destruction of the forests on the east side of the continent, said that soon the country would be so bald that every man would have to grow whiskers to hide its nakedness, but he thanked God that at least the sky was safe. 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. Year by year the remnant is growing smaller before the axe and fire, while the laws in existence provide neither for the protection of the timber from destruction nor for its use where it is most needed. Even in Congress, a sizable chunk of gold, carefully concealed, will outtalk and outfight all the nation on a subject like forestry, well smothered in ignorance, and in which the money interests of only a few are conspicuously involved. 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. To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately, 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. 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. 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. 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. you may Download the file to your hard drive. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/234. As timber the redwood is too good to live. In crafting a sense of place for the forests, Muir is passively working his readers . One of the reasons why John Muir and other naturalists would have believed that the grandeur of Western America was shaped entirely by natural forces is that they had no idea how many Native. 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