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. Muir fell in love with the immense beauty of the mountain landscape. The directors of a line that guarded against fires, and cleared a clean gap edged with living trees, and fringed and mantled with the grass and flowers and beautiful seedlings that are ever ready and willing to spring up, might justly boast of the beauty of their road; for nature is always ready to heal every scar. 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. 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 . 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. 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. "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. Nevertheless the Andes and the South American forests continued to fascinate his imagination, as his letters show, for many years after he came to California. Well, it didn't happen by accident or guesswork. In "The American Forests", John Muir's purpose is to reveal the disloyalty that Americans have towards their agriculture. 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. It seems, therefore, that almost every civilized nation can give us a lesson on the management and care of forests. The first few thousands he sells or trades at the nearest mill or store, getting provisions in exchange. > In "The American Forests", John Muir's purpose is to reveal the disloyalty that Americans have towards their agriculture. According to Muir, The trees are felled, and about half of each giant is left on the ground to be converted into smoke and ashes; the better half is sawed into choice lumber and sold to citizens of the United States or to foreigners . 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. Yet the dawn of a new day in forestry is breaking. (Boston, 1901), chapter 10, "The American Forests." Originally published as John Muir, "The American Forests," Atlantic Monthly 80 (August 1897): 145-57. 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 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. the glory of the world! '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 . The blackness is perfect. The disappearance of the forests in the first place, it is claimed, may be traced in most cases directly to mountain pasturage. John Muir. John Muir Lesson for Kids: Facts & Biography 2022-10-26. Enthralled by nature from a young age, Roosevelt cherished and promoted our nation's landscapes and wildlife. Of all the destroyers that infest the woods the shake-maker seems the happiest. 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. To show the results of the timber-planting act, it need only be stated that of the 38,000,000 acres entered under it, less than 1,000,000 acres have been patented. 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. He closes his long essay with his now-famous statements: "Any fool can destroy trees. John Muir was born in Dunbar, Scotland on April 21, 1838, as the oldest son in religious shopkeepers family. It is the citizens of this country who are robbing from and destroying the beautiful forest. So we confidently believe it will be with our great national parks and forest reservations. And you are your own boss in my business, too, if the bears aint too big and too many for you. Even Japan is ahead of us in the management of her forests. He was a strong voice in preserving the area known today as the Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Park. Posted on February 26, 2013 by Nathaniel Cowper. Gold, gold, gold! John Muir was born on April 21, 1838 in the small rural town of Dunbar, Scotland. The Yellowstone National Park 3. Still, in the long run the world does not move backward. For many a century after the ice-ploughs were melted, nature fed them and dressed them every day; working like a man, a loving, devoted, painstaking gardener; fingering every leaf and flower and mossy furrowed bole; bending, trimming, modeling, balancing, painting them with the loveliest colors; bringing over them now clouds with cooling shadows and showers, now sunshine; fanning them with gentle winds and rustling their leaves; exercising them in every fibre with storms, and pruning them; loading them with flowers and fruit, loading them with snow, and ever making them more beautiful as the years rolled by. by man, must have been a great delight to. Everywhere, everywhere over all the blessed continent, there were beauty, and melody, and kindly, wholesome, foodful abundance. 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. His family immigrated to America in 1849 and settled into farm life in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. Timber is as necessary as bread, and no scheme of management failing to recognize and properly provide for this want can possibly be maintained. 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. They are invited to heaven, and may well be allowed in America. John Muir, The American Forests. John Muir, (born April 21, 1838, Dunbar, East Lothian, Scot.died Dec. 24, 1914, Los Angeles, Calif., U.S.), U.S. naturalist and conservationist. In his article, "The American Forests," John Muir describes the issues with the Timber and Stone Act of 1878. Muir is credited with both the creation of the National Park System and the establishment of the Sierra Club. President Theodore Roosevelt was one of the most powerful voices in the history of American conservation. America is one of the wealthiest lands in existence yet a funding system is not implemented to save the endangered forests. To the northward, over Maine and the Ottawa, rose hosts of spiry, rosiny evergreens, white pine and spruce, hemlock and cedar, shoulder to shoulder, laden with purple cones, their myriad needles sparkling and shimmering, covering hills and swamps, rocky headlands and domes, ever bravely aspiring and seeking the sky; the ground in their shade now snow-clad and frozen, now mossy and flowery; beaver meadows here and there, full of lilies and grass; lakes gleaming like eyes, and a silvery embroidery of rivers and creeks watering and brightening all the vast glad wilderness. The big tree is also to come extent being made into lumber. Emerson says that things refuse to be mismanaged long. 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 . Besides his labor, only a few pounds of nails are required. 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. 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. The people will not always be deceived by selfish opposition, whether from lumber and mining corporations or from sheepmen and prospectors, however cunningly brought forward underneath fables and gold. Every place is made better by them. Travelers through the West in summer are not likely to forget the fire-work displayed along the various railway tracks. "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. John Muir, Naturalist: A Concise Biography of the Great Naturalist. Muir ended his life living in the care of his Chinese employees. 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. 237, pp. 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. The Indians with stone axes could do them no more harm than could gnawing beavers and browsing moose. FAQ | John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes. 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. The Arctic Refuge is a crucial refuge as it is one of the few left in the Arctic and around the world. 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 . 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. Muir emigrated from Scotland with his family to Wisconsin in 1849. 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. 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. Passionate and . 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 . See also: no. 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 diameter, lordly monarchs proclaiming the gospel of beauty like apostles. In the nature of things they had to give place to better cattle, though the change might have been made without barbarous wickedness. 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. The forests of America, however slighted. Listen to the trailer for. I suppose we need not go mourning the buffaloes. On the contrary, all the brains, religion, and superstition of the neighborhood are brought into play to prevent a new growth. He returned with the famous story. . The enormous logs, too heavy to handle, are blasted into manageable dimensions with gunpowder. Listen to the trailer for Holy Week. In 1879, Muir made the first of his seven trips to Alaska, where he risked his life exploring the glaciers in Glacier Bay to find evidence of glacial activity. Under the act of June 3, 1878, settlers in Colorado and the Territories were allowed to cut timber for mining and agricultural purposes from mineral land, which in the practical West means both cutting and burning anywhere and everywhere, for any purpose, on any sort of public land. not unlike those which confront us now. 14 minutes. Flying Spur Press, Yosemite, California. 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. The two most fascinating questions about extraterrestrial life are where it is found and what it is like. 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 buy no land, pay no taxes, dwell in a paradise with no forbidding angel either from Washington or from heaven. 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. In one case which came under the observation of Mr. Bowers, it was the practice of a lumber company to hire the entire crew of every vessel which might happen to touch at any port in the redwood belt, to enter one hundred and sixty acres each and immediately deed the land to the company, in consideration of the company's paying all expenses and giving the jolly sailors fifty dollars apiece for their trouble. 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. 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. travel our way. Abstract. Thus, with abundance of fuel, shelter and comfort by his own fireside are secured. Muir made extended journeys throughout America, observing both scientifically and enthusiastically the beauties of the wilderness. The American Forests In decrying the destruction of woodlands by loggers, settlers, and industrialists, Muir, the father of America's conservation movement, advanced the notion that. 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? In any case, it will be hard to teach the pioneers that it is wrong to steal government timber. Each article originally printed in this magazine is available here, complete and unedited from the historical print. Basically, Muir's essay is a moment by moment account of one of his outings in the California . 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. -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. In most mills only the best portions of the best trees are used, while the ruins are left on the ground to feed great fires which kill much of what is left of the less desirable timber, together with the seedlings on which the permanence of the forest depends. Under these circumstances, the bawling, blethering oratorical stuff drowns the voice of God himself. So they appeared a few centuries ago when they were rejoicing in wildness. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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