Muir believes the forests must have been a delight to God, for "they were the best he ever planted" (145). After the Atlantic coast from Maine to Georgia had been mostly cleared and scorched into melancholy ruins, the overflowing multitude of bread and money seekers poured over the Alleghanies into the fertile middle West, spreading ruthless devastation ever wider and farther over the rich valley of the Mississippi and the vast shadowy pine region about the Great Lakes. The chief aims of the administration are effective protection of the forests from fire, an efficient system of regeneration, and cheap transportation of the forest products; the results so far have been most beneficial and encouraging. 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. 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. 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. On the contrary, they are made to produce as much timber as is possible without spoiling them. 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. 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. The great forests of Northern United States captivated him and fueled . 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. Likewise many of natures five hundred kinds of wild trees had to make way for orchards and cornfields. Every place is made better by them. John Muir founded the Sierra Club in 1892, whose main goal was to "do something for nature and make the mountains glad.". 331-[365]; no. They are four feet long, four inches wide, and about one fourth of an inch thick. The Yellowstone National Park 3. 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. During his lengthy wanderings, Muir contemplated man's relationship to nature. > About this book. In decrying the destruction of woodlands by loggers, settlers, and industrialists, Muir, the father of Americas conservation movement, advanced the notion that natural resources ought to be preservedan idea that spawned vast new parks as well as the creation of the U.S. Forest Service. No traveler, whether a tree lover or not, will ever forget his first walk in a sugar-pine forest. 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. In the nature of things they had to give place to better cattle, though the change might have been made without barbarous wickedness. Travelers through the West in summer are not likely to forget the fire-work displayed along the various railway tracks. This first chapter is essentially an overview of the entire book. 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 . The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West 2. Part One, The week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? 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. 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. Back at the turn of the 20th Century Gifford Pinchot and John Muir had radically contrasting views of how to manage . Thence westward were oak and elm, hickory and tupelo, gum and liriodendron, sassafras and ash, linden and laurel, spreading on ever wider in glorious exuberance over the great fertile basin of the Mississippi, over damp level bottoms, low dimpling hollows, and round dotting hills, embosoming sunny prairies and cheery park openings, half sunshine, half shade ; while a dark wilderness of pines covered the region around the Great Lakes. Tule Joe made five hundred dollars last winter on mallard and teal. In Luke 12 Jesus says, "I've come to bring fire on earth." The cool shades of the forest give rise to moist beds and currents of air, and the sod of grasses and the various flowering plants and shrubs thus fostered, together with the network and sponge of tree roots, absorb and hold back the rain and the waters from melting snow, compelling them to ooze and percolate and flow gently through the soil in streams that never dry. Most notably, this was John Muir's first published essay (1871). So they appeared a few centuries ago when they were rejoicing in wildness. The slow-going, un-thrifty farmers, also, are beginning to realize that when the timber is stripped from the mountains the irrigating streams dry up in summer, and are destructive in winter; that soil, scenery, and everything slips off with the trees: so of course they are coming into the ranks of tree-friends. 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. 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! 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. Basically, Muir's essay is a moment by moment account of one of his outings in the California . 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. The Sierra Club is the oldest, largest and most influential conservation organization in the United States. Muir ended his life living in the care of his Chinese employees. The winds will blow their own freshness into you, and the storms their energy, while cares will drop away from you like the leaves of Autumn." John Muir, The Mountains of California tags: energy , mountains , nature 1227 likes Like But light is surely coming, and the friends of destruction will preach and bewail in vain. 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. 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. He concluded that all life forms have inherent significance and the right to exist. Passionate and . It is the citizens of this country who are robbing from and destroying the beautiful forest. Honest citizens see that only the rights of the government are being trampled, not those of the settlers. And you are your own boss in my business, too, if the bears aint too big and too many for you. 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. It is not a book of forestry, but the forest is the most . Rachel Carson, The Obligation to Endure. A proprietor who has cleared his forest without permission is subject to heavy fine, and in addition may be made to replant the cleared area. 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. T he Mountains of California, published in 1894, is John Muir's first book. 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. A Wind-Storm in the Forests. 234. David Suzuki, The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature. U.S. My First Summer in the Sierra, John Muir's reverent acclamation of the beauty of the wilderness and particularly the Yosemite Valley in California, is a dated journal account of . 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. 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? 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. '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 . 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. In "The American Forests", John Muir's purpose is to reveal the disloyalty that Americans have towards their agriculture. The week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? As a child, he designed many inventions that would ease the familys work. 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. Surely, then, it should not be wondered at that lovers of their country, bewailing its baldness, are now crying aloud, Save what is left of the forests! Clearing has surely now gone far enough; soon timber will be scarce, and not a grove will be left to rest in or pray in. > 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. OUR NATIONAL PARKs.-Under this title Mr. John Muir has brought together several papers originally published in the Atlantic Monthly. On the contrary, all the brains, religion, and superstition of the neighborhood are brought into play to prevent a new growth. He explains that "any fool can destroy trees" as "they cannot run away" (Muir, 2006, p. 364). 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. Under these circumstances, the bawling, blethering oratorical stuff drowns the voice of God himself. Muir made extended journeys throughout America, observing both scientifically and enthusiastically the beauties of the wilderness. 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. American forests! The abstract is typically a short summary of the . 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. 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. John Muir was born on April 21, 1838 in the small rural town of Dunbar, Scotland. 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 became politically active to protect Yosemite from being threatened by commercial developments. > 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. 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 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 Russian government passed a law in 1888, declaring that clearing is forbidden in protection forests, and is allowed in others only when its effects will not be to disturb the suitable relations which should exist between forest and agricultural lands.. Under the timber and stone act of 1878, which might well have been called the dust and ashes act, any citizen of the United States could take up one hundred and sixty acres of timber land, and by paying two dollars and a half an acre for it obtain title. 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. 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. Ginger Wadsworth. > The redwood is the glory of the Coast Range. Of all the destroyers that infest the woods the shake-maker seems the happiest. There is none to say them nay. 2) Yosemite Glaciers. So we confidently believe it will be with our great national parks and forest reservations. Here the forests reached their highest development. 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