John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes. Railroad tracks were just . 14 minutes. John Muir was one of the countrys most famous naturalist and conservationist and Muir Woods, part of Golden Gate National Recreation Area, is named in his honor. 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 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. But this priceless land has been patented, and nothing can be done now about the crazy bargain. . It grows sturdily on all kinds of soil and rocks, and, protected by a mail of . Katherine S. Talmadge. He was 29. "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. Only the lower, perfectly clear, free-splitting portions of the giant pines are used, perhaps ten to twenty feet from a tree two hundred and fifty in height; all the rest is left a mass of ruins, to rot or to feed the forest fires, while thousands are hacked deeply and rejected in proving the grain. Now it is plain that the forests are not inexhaustible, and that quick measures must be taken if ruin is to be avoided. President Teddy Roosevelt was profoundly influenced by Muir and the conservation movement. The sprouts from the roots and stumps are cut off again and again, with zealous concern as to the best time and method of making death sure. Most notably, this was John Muir's first published essay (1871). About seventy million acres it still owns, enough for all the country, if wisely used. 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. From an early age, Muir was fascinated by nature and was eager to learn about his environment. 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. Muir strategically uses God to appeal to the readers of the time. 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 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. 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. 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. Carter argues that it is the duty of everyone to preserve the Arctic Refuge rather than dig holes in it to extract oil. 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 . . Merely what belongs to all alike is reserved, and every acre that is left should be held together under the federal government as a basis for a general policy of administration for the public good. Muir fell in love with the immense beauty of the mountain landscape. So they appeared a few centuries ago when they were rejoicing in wildness. Humans, Muir decided, are no greater or lesser than other forms of life. Theres big money in it, and your grub costs nothing. 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. And you are your own boss in my business, too, if the bears aint too big and too many for you. Our National Parks, by John Muir (1901, c. (1901)) - John Muir Writings . The whole sky, with clouds, sun, moon, and stars, is simply blotted out. '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 . Drought and barrenness would follow. 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. John Muir. 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. So we confidently believe it will be with our great national parks and forest reservations. A few bolts from the same section that the shakes were made from are split into square sticks and built up to form a chimney, the inside and interspaces being plastered and filled in with mud. 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. 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, (born April 21, 1838, Dunbar, East Lothian, Scot.died Dec. 24, 1914, Los Angeles, Calif., U.S.), U.S. naturalist and conservationist. He would later be called the godfather of the American environmental movement. Free shipping for many products! At university, Muir focused his studies on chemistry, geology and botany. Every tree heard the bodeful sound, and pillars of smoke gave the sign in the sky. travel our way. So they appeared a few centuries ago when they were rejoicing in wildness. John Muir, in The American Forests, speaks fondly of the American forests, calling them the "glory of the world." He discusses the genera of each coast, and describes the vast diversity between species, size, and some wildlife. 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. It is the only genuine Erebus route. Since then, critics both international and domestic, but mostly from within the environmental movement, have criticized the idea of wilderness. John Muir in Yosemite. 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 . During his lengthy wanderings, Muir contemplated man's relationship to nature. Thence still westward the invading horde of destroyers called settlers made its fiery way over the broad Rocky Mountains, felling and burning more fiercely than ever, until at last it has reached the wild side of the continent, and entered the last of the great aboriginal forests on the shores of the Pacific. 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. 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. Of course a way had to be cleared through the woods. Publisher's Summary During the past twenty-five years, North American forestry has received increasingly vigorous scrutiny. He played a significant role in preserving and protecting important areas of our country. 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! After becoming president in 1901, Roosevelt used his authority to establish 150 national forests, 51 federal bird reserves, four national game preserves, five national parks and . The special land agents employed by the General Land Office to protect the public domain from timber depredations are supposed to collect testimony to sustain prosecution, and to superintend such prosecution on behalf of the government, which is represented by the district attorneys. In France no government forests have been sold since 1870. you may Download the file to your hard drive. 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. America is one of the wealthiest Continue reading Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged John Muir, The American Forests | 1 Comment 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. 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 . 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. 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. While in Alaska, I saw the loveliest forests and scenery I've ever seen. But when the steel axe of the white man rang out in the startled air their doom was sealed. Of all the destroyers that infest the woods the shake-maker seems the happiest. -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. A leaf, a flower, a stone - the simple beauty of nature filled John Muir with joy. As timber the redwood is too good to live. Armed with a plant-press and a blank notebook, Muir wandered for weeks at a time, through the mountains that would later be Yosemite National Park. Conservation generally refers to the act of consciously and efficiently using land and/or its natural resources. 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. Author: SAISD Created Date: 06/16/2016 20:10:00 Last modified by: SAISD The Indians with stone axes could do them no more harm than could gnawing beavers and browsing moose. Home Starting in the i87os, Muir made exploring wilderness and extoling its values a way of life. John Muir (1838-1914) was born in Scotland and emigrated to Wisconsin as a young boy. Any fool can destroy trees. Every place is made better by them. 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. 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. John Muir was born on April 21, 1838 in the small rural town of Dunbar, Scotland. 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. In 1903, Roosevelt spent four days in Yosemite with Muir, camping with him and learning about the value of the untamed land. John Muir was born in Dunbar, Scotland on April 21, 1838, as the oldest son in religious shopkeepers family. Ours is the blackest. Nevertheless, under this act wealthy corporations have fraudulently obtained title to from ten thousand to twenty thousand acres or more. 357-[393]. Surveyed thus from the east to the west, from the north to the south, they are rich beyond thought, immortal, immeasurable, enough and to spare for every feeding, sheltering beast and bird, insect and son of Adam; and nobody need have cared had there been no pines in Norway, no cedars and deodars on Lebanon and the Himalayas, no vine-clad selvas in the basin of the Amazon. Posted on February 26, 2013 by Nathaniel Cowper. Muir, John, "The American Forests" (1897). 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. 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 . 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. 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 week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? 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. To Muir, these forests are a true creation by God himself--everlasting, plentiful, and can feed every man and . His letters, essays, and books telling of his adventures in nature, especially in the Sierra Nevada of California, have been read by millions. There is none to say them nay. 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. Tule Joe made five hundred dollars last winter on mallard and teal. Not a mountain is left in the landscape. Muir ended his life living in the care of his Chinese employees. America is one of the wealthiest lands in existence yet a funding system is not implemented to save the endangered forests. 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 was an early proponent of a view we still hold todaythat much of California was pristine, untouched wilderness before the arrival of Europeans. About this book. John Muir Lesson for Kids: Facts & Biography 2022-10-26. Theyre good as hog hams any day. But not one denuded acre in a hundred is allowed to raise a new forest growth. 1971. The Pantheon Press, Nashville, Tennessee, 1959. 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.. This tree is one of the most variable and most widely distributed of American pines. 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. The Arctic Refuge is a crucial refuge as it is one of the few left in the Arctic and around the world. 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. It is not a book of forestry, but the forest is the most . The blackness is perfect. 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. I was consequently keen to read his short essay "Save the redwoods" when it popped up as an LOA story-of-the-week three weeks ago. 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. In 1849, Muir and his family immigrated to Wisconsin to homestead. Ruin is to be avoided ruin is to be avoided God himself -- everlasting, plentiful, and, by. Whole sky, with clouds, sun, moon, and stars, is simply blotted.. But not one denuded acre in a hundred is allowed to raise a forest... Pantheon Press, Nashville, Tennessee, 1959 good to live of his Chinese employees,.... Steel axe of the American forests '' ( 1897 ) of American pines in religious shopkeepers family godfather the... Exploring wilderness and extoling its values a way had to be cleared through the woods the shake-maker the! 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