John Muir founded the Sierra Club in 1892, whose main goal was to "do something for nature and make the mountains glad.". In "The American Forests", John Muir's purpose is to reveal the disloyalty that Americans have towards their agriculture. 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.. Hence they went wavering northward over icy Alaska, brave spruce and fir, poplar and birch, by the coasts and the rivers, to within sight of the Arctic Ocean. 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. Now it is plain that the forests are not inexhaustible, and that quick measures must be taken if ruin is to be avoided. It is the citizens of this country who are robbing from and destroying the beautiful forest. 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 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 . 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. So they appeared a few centuries ago when they were rejoicing in wildness. Flying Spur Press, Yosemite, California. Shot em on the Joaquin, tied em in dozens by the neck, and shipped em to San Francisco. 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. travel our way. . The Yellowstone National Park 3. Sheep-owners and their shepherds also set fires everywhere through the woods in the fall to facilitate the march of their countless flocks the next summer, and perhaps in some places to improve the pasturage. U.S. Visit the John Muir National Historic Site, located in Martinez, California. In the clearings of one of the largest mills on the coast we found thirty men at work, last summer, cutting off redwood shoots in the dark of the moon, claiming that all the stumps and roots cleared at this auspicious time would send up no more shoots. The redwood is the glory of the Coast Range. 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. John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes. Then he goes to work sawing and splitting for the market, tying the shakes in bundles of fifty or a hundred. Being rather partial to trees, I could not resist reading "A wind-storm in the forests" by Scottish-born American naturalist/enviromentalist John Muir (1838-1914) when it lobbed in by email today as this week's Library of America story of the week.Anyone who has been to the stunning Yosemite - or visited the peaceful Muir Woods north of San Francisco - will have heard of John Muir. As the title suggests, this essay is a study of the glaciers found in the region of the ensuing Yosemite National Park. Muir emigrated from Scotland with his family to Wisconsin in 1849. In no other way than under some one of these laws can a citizen of the United States make any use of the public forests. About | 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. 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. To view the content in your browser, please download Adobe Reader or, alternately, The redwood is restricted to the Coast Range, and the big tree to the Sierra. The Arctic Refuge is a crucial refuge as it is one of the few left in the Arctic and around the world. 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. 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. The Land Ethic Aldo Leopold Part II: Two Philosophical Issues in Forestry Ethics MULTIPLE VALUES IN FORESTS . T he Mountains of California, published in 1894, is John Muir's first book. But most preferred the shake business, until something more profitable and as sure could be found, with equal comfort and independence. See All test questions. The settlement laws, under which a settler may enter lands valuable for timber as well as for agriculture, furnish another means of obtaining title to public timber. John Muir. Muir constantly brings up the burning of the forests. Madison Grant's nature was the last redoubt of nobility in a levelling and hybridizing democracy. . Accordingly, with no eye to the future, these pious destroyers waged interminable forest wars; chips flew thick and fast; trees in their beauty fell crashing by millions, smashed to confusion, and the smoke of their burning has been rising to heaven more than two hundred years. 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 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. In his article, "The American Forests," John Muir describes the issues with the Timber and Stone Act of 1878. Muir served as the club's president until his death in 1914, and today, the Sierra Club boasts more than 3 . "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. Read more from, Butterfield & Co.: In Two Parts. 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. On the contrary, they are made to produce as much timber as is possible without spoiling them. Ginger Wadsworth. Through all the wonderful, eventful centuries since Christ's 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.''. 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. American forests! During a mans life only saplings can be grown, in the place of the old trees tens of centuries old that have been destroyed. In the nature of things they had to give place to better cattle, though the change might have been made without barbarous wickedness. Katherine S. Talmadge. Not a mountain is left in the landscape. The American Forests Appendix Index List of Illustrations Sequoias, Mariposa Grove [bigger] Like 0. Tule Joe made five hundred dollars last winter on mallard and teal. In the East and along the northern Pacific coast, where the rainfall is abundant, comparatively few care keenly what becomes of the trees as long as fuel and lumber are not noticeably dear. Ours is the blackest. 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. Home | Relating how the ever-increasing horde of settlers had poured across the continent, Muir writes: " with no eye to the future, these pious destroyers waged interminable forest wars; chips flew thick and fast, trees in their beauty fell crashing by the millions and the smoke of their burning has been rising to heaven more than 200 years . 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." A part of the John Muir Exhibit, by Harold Wood and Harvey Chinn. In 1913, Congress passed a law that approved the construction of the dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley. 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. Here and there in the Southern States there are still considerable areas of timbered government land, but these are comparatively unimportant. University Libraries A leaf, a flower, a stone - the simple beauty of nature filled John Muir with joy. Visit the parks associated with John Muir! About seventy million acres it still owns, enough for all the country, if wisely used. The Yosemite National Park 4. Nature's peace will flow into you as sunshine flows into trees. John Muir remains worthy of honor and respect as a person who studied, recorded, and shared the natural areas of the United States and the world, and the role of humans within the environment. The 39th president of the United States of America Jimmy Carter fears the domination of domestic use of the Artctic Refuge. 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. The Indians with stone axes could do them no more harm than could gnawing beavers and browsing moose. 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. In their natural condition, or under wise management, keeping out destructive sheep, preventing fires, selecting the trees that should be cut for lumber, and preserving the young ones and the shrubs and sod of herbaceous vegetation, these forests would be a never failing fountain of wealth and beauty. 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. 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 sky is black and the ground is black, and on either side there is a continuous border of black stumps and logs and blasted trees appealing to heaven for help as if still half alive, and their mute eloquence is most interestingly touching. It seems, therefore, that almost every civilized nation can give us a lesson on the management and care of forests. 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. 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. 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