the american forests john muir summary

Muir is credited with both the creation of the National Park System and the establishment of the Sierra Club. 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. Carter argues that it is the duty of everyone to preserve the Arctic Refuge rather than dig holes in it to extract oil. Humans, Muir decided, are no greater or lesser than other forms of life. Still, in the long run the world does not move backward. 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. 14 minutes. At university, Muir focused his studies on chemistry, geology and botany. Of course a way had to be cleared through the woods. > 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. -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. University of Northern Iowa UNI ScholarWorks Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate College 2016 Three men in the wilderness: Ideas and concepts of John Muir Lesson for Kids: Facts & Biography 2022-10-26. Our National Parks, by John Muir (1901, c. 1909) - The Writings of John Muir - John Muir Exhibit (John Muir Education Project, Sierra Club California) Our National Parks by John Muir Contents List of Illustrations Preface The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West The Yellowstone National Park The Yosemite National Park Born April 21, 1838, Muir has become America's most famous naturalist and conservationist. 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. 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. 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. It has, therefore, as shown by Mr. Pinchot, refused to deliver its forests to more or less speedy destruction by permitting them to pass into private ownership. Muir emigrated from Scotland with his family to Wisconsin in 1849. you may Download the file to your hard drive. 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. (Boston, 1901), chapter 10, "The American Forests." Originally published as John Muir, "The American Forests," Atlantic Monthly 80 (August 1897): 145-57. So we confidently believe it will be with our great national parks and forest reservations. 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. President Theodore Roosevelt was one of the most powerful voices in the history of American conservation. Muir served as the club's president until his death in 1914, and today, the Sierra Club boasts more than 3 . 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. John Muir in the Sierra Nevada mountains 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. They are invited to heaven, and may well be allowed in America. This tree is one of the most variable and most widely distributed of American pines. 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. 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. Back at the turn of the 20th Century Gifford Pinchot and John Muir had radically contrasting views of how to manage . 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. He played a significant role in preserving and protecting important areas of our country. 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. The American Forests John Muir ALDO LEOPOLD'S LAND ETHIC IN FORESTRY; 5. 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. 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. To prepare the ground, it was rolled and sifted in seas with infinite loving deliberation and forethought, lifted into the light, submerged and warmed over and over again, pressed and crumpled into folds and ridges, mountains and hills, subsoiled with heaving volcanic fires, ploughed and ground and sculptured into scenery and soil with glaciers and rivers, very feature growing and changing from beauty to beauty, higher and higher. 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. The Land Ethic Aldo Leopold Part II: Two Philosophical Issues in Forestry Ethics MULTIPLE VALUES IN FORESTS . It took more than three thousand years to make some of the trees in these Western woods, trees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra. 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. John Muir. No traveler, whether a tree lover or not, will ever forget his first walk in a sugar-pine forest. 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. The United States government has always been proud of the welcome it has extended to good men of every nation, seeking freedom and homes and bread. The fires, whether accidental or set, are allowed to run into the woods as far as they may, thus assuring comprehensive destruction. The disappearance of the forests in the first place, it is claimed, may be traced in most cases directly to mountain pasturage. Both environmentalists were great activists that informed the . About | 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 the felled timber is not worked up into firewood for the engines and into lumber for the companys use; it is left lying in vulgar confusion, and is fired from time to time by sparks from locomotives or by the workmen camping along the line. Notwithstanding all the waste and use which have been going on unchecked like a storm for more than two centuries, it is not yet too late, though it is high time, for the government to begin a rational administration of its forests. The passage of the Wilderness Act was an historically important event in American environmental politics, which tied the fate of much of America's public lands to disputes over the meaning of wilderness. He shared his love of the outdoors through writing and inspired people to protect our country's wild places like Yosemite, Grand Canyon and Sequoia & King's Canyon . He educated Americans about the value of the countrys wilderness, inspiring generations of wilderness advocates. 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. But when the steel axe of the white man rang out in the startled air their doom was sealed. John Muir (1838-1914) was born in Scotland and emigrated to Wisconsin as a young boy. John Muir founded the Sierra Club in 1892, whose main goal was to "do something for nature and make the mountains glad.". 341, v. 6, pp. 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. 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. On the contrary, they are made to produce as much timber as is possible without spoiling them. A part of the John Muir Exhibit, by Harold Wood and Harvey Chinn. . Here and there in the Southern States there are still considerable areas of timbered government land, but these are comparatively unimportant. The Yosemite National Park 4. 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. The week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? Lerner Publications Company, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1992. With such variety, harmony, and triumphant exuberance, even nature, it would seem, might have rested content with the forests of North America, and planted no more. The same thing is true of the mines, which consume and destroy indirectly immense quantities of timber with their innumerable fires, accidental or set to make open ways, and often without regard to how far they run. 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. In Luke 12 Jesus says, "I've come to bring fire on earth." The Indians with stone axes could do them no more harm than could gnawing beavers and browsing moose. by man, must have been a great delight to. Visit the John Muir National Historic Site, located in Martinez, California. 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 . 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 . Free shipping for many products! 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 annual appropriation for so-called protection service is hardly sufficient to keep twenty-five timber agents in the field, and as far as any efficient protection of timber is concerned these agents themselves might as well be timber. The gigantea attains a greater girth, and is heavier, more noble in port, and more sublimely beautiful. 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. About seventy million acres it still owns, enough for all the country, if wisely used. Shot em on the Joaquin, tied em in dozens by the neck, and shipped em to San Francisco. He returned with the famous story. 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. 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. Visit Muir Woods National Monument, located in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. 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. He was 29. After several legal battles, Congress established Yosemite National Park in 1890 in order to protect thousands of acres of forest land from further destruction. 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. 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. The enormous logs, too heavy to handle, are blasted into manageable dimensions with gunpowder. Accessibility Statement, John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes, Holt-Atherton Special Collections homepage. 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. 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 . Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. The two most fascinating questions about extraterrestrial life are where it is found and what it is like. John Muir was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. From poetry, novels, and memoirs to journalism, crime writing, and science fiction, the more than 300 volumes published by Library of America are widely . Travelers through the West in summer are not likely to forget the fire-work displayed along the various railway tracks. By the act of June 3, 1878, timber can be taken from public lands not subject to entry under any existing laws except for minerals, by bona fide residents of the Rocky Mountain States and Territories and the Dakotas. 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 . A famous quotation where Muir refers to the Sierra as the "Range of Light" is found within this chapter. Railroad tracks were just . 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. 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. My Account | In 1903, Roosevelt spent four days in Yosemite with Muir, camping with him and learning about the value of the untamed land. I suppose we need not go mourning the buffaloes. https://scholarlycommons.pacific.edu/jmb/234. 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. John Muir, (born April 21, 1838, Dunbar, East Lothian, Scot.died Dec. 24, 1914, Los Angeles, Calif., U.S.), U.S. naturalist and conservationist. A Wind-Storm in the Forests. He came to the San Francisco area in 1868 and there he discovered the Sierra Mountains. Old grizzlies I despise, they want cannon to kill em; but the blacks and browns are beauties for grease, and when I get em just right, and draw a bead on em, I fetch em every time. Another said he was going to catch up a lot of mustangs as soon as the rains set in, hitch them to a gang-plough, and go to farming on the San Joaquin plains for wheat. In 1849, Muir and his family immigrated to Wisconsin to homestead. Few that fell trees plant them; nor would planting avail much towards getting back anything like the noble primeval forests. About this book. It is the citizens of this country who are robbing from and destroying the beautiful forest. Twenty-First Century Books, New York, New York. Muir fell in love with the immense beauty of the mountain landscape. They are four feet long, four inches wide, and about one fourth of an inch thick. 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