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 . 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. 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. Listen to the trailer for. 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. of John Muir and Gifford Pinchot Matthew E. Whitbeck Western Oregon University, wolfen.one79@gmail.com Follow this and additional works at:https://digitalcommons.wou.edu/his . Everyone needs beauty as well as bread, places to play in and pray in where nature may heal and cheer and give strength to body and soul alike - John Muir, 1869. 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. Its a mighty good business, and youre your own boss, and the whole things fun.. 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. A part of the John Muir Exhibit, by Harold Wood and Harvey Chinn. Its focus is the general geology and characteristics of the Sierra Nevada. 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. Under these circumstances, the bawling, blethering oratorical stuff drowns the voice of God himself. John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes. Muir believes the forests must have been a delight to God, for "they were the best he ever planted" (145). World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future: From One Earth to One World (Brundtland Report) So we confidently believe it will be with our great national parks and forest reservations. Visit the parks associated with John Muir! They have so long been allowed to steal and destroy in peace that any impediment to forest robbery is denounced as a cruel and irreligious interference with vested rights, likely to endanger the repose of all ungodly welfare. Railroad tracks were just . 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. Trees from ten to fifteen feet in diameter and three hundred feet high are not uncommon, and a few attain a height of three hundred and fifty feet, or even four hundred, with a diameter at the base of fifteen to twenty feet or more, while the ground beneath them is a garden of fresh, exuberant ferns, lilies, gaultheria, and rhododendron. President Theodore Roosevelt & John Muir. Likewise many of natures five hundred kinds of wild trees had to make way for orchards and cornfields. He concluded that all life forms have inherent significance and the right to exist. 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. He was 29. About seventy million acres it still owns, enough for all the country, if wisely used. 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. Within the pantheon of environmental greats, few match the stature of John Muir. The Land Ethic Aldo Leopold Part II: Two Philosophical Issues in Forestry Ethics MULTIPLE VALUES IN FORESTS . Have you ever wondered why your favorite National Park is surrounded by a National Forest? The volume is from the press of Houghton . 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. 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. Carter argues that it is the duty of everyone to preserve the Arctic Refuge rather than dig holes in it to extract oil. 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. A Wind-Storm in the Forests. 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. So they appeared a few centuries ago when they were rejoicing in wildness. > 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. Honest citizens see that only the rights of the government are being trampled, not those of the settlers. 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. 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 closes his long essay with his now-famous statements: "Any fool can destroy trees. 331-[365]; no. 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. Shot em on the Joaquin, tied em in dozens by the neck, and shipped em to San Francisco. 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. He is best known for his work as a conservationist, particularly his role in the establishment of Yosemite National Park in California. The gigantea attains a greater girth, and is heavier, more noble in port, and more sublimely beautiful. 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. 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. 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. In Luke 12 Jesus says, "I've come to bring fire on earth." Read more from, Butterfield & Co.: In Two Parts. They are four feet long, four inches wide, and about one fourth of an inch thick. Anyhow, these vigorous, almost immortal trees are killed at last, and black stumps are now their only monuments over most of the chopped and burned areas. 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. 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.. 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. The blackness is perfect. This first chapter is essentially an overview of the entire book. He played a significant role in preserving and protecting important areas of our country. 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. There was some virtuous effort made with a view to limit the operations of the act by requiring that the purchaser should make affidavit that he was entering the land exclusively for his own use, and by not allowing any association to enter more than one hundred and sixty acres. John Muir was born in Dunbar, Scotland on April 21, 1838, as the oldest son in religious shopkeepers family. John Muir (1838-1914), the great naturalist and founder of the Sierra Club, has long been a favorite of mine. He came to the San Francisco area in 1868 and there he discovered the Sierra Mountains. 237, pp. So they appeared a few centuries ago when they were rejoicing in wildness. Twenty-First Century Books, New York, New York. It is the only genuine Erebus route. 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. The Pantheon Press, Nashville, Tennessee, 1959. 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. That a change from robbery and ruin to a permanent rational policy is urgently needed nobody with the slightest knowledge of American forests will deny. Theres big money in it, and your grub costs nothing. 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. This magazine has been fully digitized as a part of The Atlantic's archive. you may Download the file to your hard drive. 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. 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. Most notably, this was John Muir's first published essay (1871). As a boy, Muir was "fond of everything that was wild" (My Boyhood and Youth 30) and took great pleasure in the outdoors. Restless to explore more of the country, he left school for what he would call "the University of the Wilderness. To the southward stretched dark, level-topped cypresses in knobby, tangled swamps, grassy savannas in the midst of them like lakes of light, groves of gay sparkling spice-trees, magnolias and palms, glossy-leaved and blooming and shining continually. The big tree is also to come extent being made into lumber. 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. John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes > 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. 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 Then he goes to work sawing and splitting for the market, tying the shakes in bundles of fifty or a hundred. In crafting a sense of place for the forests, Muir is passively working his readers . 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. How strong a voice that metal has! 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. Muir is credited with both the creation of the National Park System and the establishment of the Sierra Club. During his lengthy wanderings, Muir contemplated man's relationship to nature. Let them be welcomed still as nature welcomes them, to the woods as well as to the prairies and plains. 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