the american forests john muir summary

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 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. The Mountains of California, his first book, was published in. Of the total area of government forests, perhaps 70,000,000 acres, 55,000,000 acres have been brought under the control of the forestry department, a larger area than that of all our national parks and reservations. 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. Lerner Publications Company, Minneapolis, Minnesota, 1992. Home He also realized how fragile nature was; how peoples impact on the land, through grazing, lumbering and commercial developments, was slowly destroying all the beauty in the wilderness. He came to the San Francisco area in 1868 and there he discovered the Sierra Mountains. 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. They cannot run away; and if they could, they would still be destroyedchased and hunted down as long as fun or a dollar could be got out of their bark hides, branching horns, or magnificent bole backbones It took more than three thousand years to make some of the trees in these Western woodstrees that are still standing in perfect strength and beauty, waving and singing in the mighty forests of the Sierra. Only the forests of the West are significant in size and value, and these, although still great, are rapidly vanishing. He explains that "any fool can destroy trees" as "they cannot run away" (Muir, 2006, p. 364). John Muir, The American Forests. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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 . Muir became politically active to protect Yosemite from being threatened by commercial developments. 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. World Commission on Environment and Development, Our Common Future: From One Earth to One World (Brundtland Report) But not one denuded acre in a hundred is allowed to raise a new forest growth. 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 glory of the world! 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. 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. The redwood is restricted to the Coast Range, and the big tree to the Sierra. 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. 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. 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. Here, in The Mountains of California, is the first time the phrase Range . 1) The Sierra Nevada. Muir served as the club's president until his death in 1914, and today, the Sierra Club boasts more than 3 . Since then, critics both international and domestic, but mostly from within the environmental movement, have criticized the idea of wilderness. travel our way. 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. But when the steel axe of the white man rang out in the startled air their doom was sealed. Aldo Leopold, Thinking Like a Mountain. 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. Starting in the i87os, Muir made exploring wilderness and extoling its values a way of life. As a child, he designed many inventions that would ease the familys work. As a boy, Muir was "fond of everything that was wild" (My Boyhood and Youth 30) and took great pleasure in the outdoors. A Wind-Storm in the Forests. '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 . 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. John Muirthe surprise star of Ken Burns's recent PBS documentary, The National Parks is most remembered for founding the Sierra Club in 1911 and for the preservation of Yosemite, but another of his great legacies is his prose, which introduced a new vocabulary to the genre of nature writing. Basically, Muir's essay is a moment by moment account of one of his outings in the California . 234. Posted on February 26, 2013 by Nathaniel Cowper. The redwood is the glory of the Coast Range. 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. 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. 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. Enthralled by nature from a young age, Roosevelt cherished and promoted our nation's landscapes and wildlife. It is the only genuine Erebus route. 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 Selecting a favorable spot for a cabin near a meadow with a stream, he unpacks his animal and stakes it out on the meadow. 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. The whole sky, with clouds, sun, moon, and stars, is simply blotted out. Thence still westward swept the forests to right and left around grassy plains and deserts a thousand miles wide: irrepressible hosts of spruce and pine, aspen and willow, nut-pine and juniper, cactus and yucca, caring nothing for drought, extending undaunted from mountain to mountain, over mesa and desert, to join the darkening multitudes of pines that covered the high Rocky ranges and the glorious forests along the coast of the moist and balmy Pacific, where new species of pine, giant cedars and spruces, silver firs and sequoias, kings of their race, growing close together like grass in a meadow, poised their brave domes and spires in the sky three hundred feet above the ferns and the lilies that enameled the ground; towering serene through the long centuries, preaching Gods forestry fresh from heaven. 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. Well, it didn't happen by accident or guesswork. 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. The great forests of Northern United States captivated him and fueled . 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. How strong a voice that metal has! Not a mountain is left in the landscape. The first few thousands he sells or trades at the nearest mill or store, getting provisions in exchange. Everywhere, everywhere over all the blessed continent, there were beauty, and melody, and kindly, wholesome, foodful abundance. 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. 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 volume is from the press of Houghton . 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. 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. Besides his labor, only a few pounds of nails are required. Last summer, in the Rocky Mountains, I saw six fires started by sparks from a locomotive within a distance of three miles, and nobody was in sight to prevent them from spreading. Of course a way had to be cleared through the woods. 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 . John Muir (1838-1914) was born in Scotland and emigrated to Wisconsin as a young boy. The Land Ethic Aldo Leopold Part II: Two Philosophical Issues in Forestry Ethics MULTIPLE VALUES IN FORESTS . John Muir, Naturalist: A Concise Biography of the Great Naturalist. Thus, with abundance of fuel, shelter and comfort by his own fireside are secured. It is a compilation of his own accounts of his travels and journeys, and his explorations and examinations, of the mountain ranges of California, in particular the Sierra Nevada, during the late 1860s to the early 1870s, a time when the wild places in the State where . 237, pp. John W. Winkley, M.A., D.D. My Account | Muir made extended journeys throughout America, observing both scientifically and enthusiastically the beauties of the wilderness. So they appeared a few centuries ago when they were rejoicing in wildness. 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. 341, v. 6, pp. But timber-thieves of the Western class are seldom convicted, for the good reason that most of the jurors who try such cases are themselves as guilty as those on trial. "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. 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. They buy no land, pay no taxes, dwell in a paradise with no forbidding angel either from Washington or from heaven. 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. 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 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 diameterlordly monarchs proclaiming the gospel of beauty like apostles. 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. America is one of the wealthiest Continue reading Posted in Uncategorized | Tagged John Muir, The American Forests | 1 Comment On the other hand, about one half of the fifty million francs spent on forestry has been given to engineering works, to make the replanting of denuded areas possible. Shirley Sargent. Ours is the blackest. Trees go wandering forth in all directions with every wind, going and coming like ourselves, traveling with us around the sun two million miles a day, and through space heaven knows how fast and far! 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. See All test questions. 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. Had he gone West he would have found out that the sky was not safe; for all through the summer months, over most of the mountain regions, the smoke of mill and forest fires is so thick and black that no sunbeam can pierce it. The most significant battle that Muir and the Sierra Club ever fought was over the damming of Yosemites Hetch Hetchy Valley. Theres big money in it, and your grub costs nothing. Muir's conservation efforts saved many forests and natural areas for all of us. Nevertheless, under this act wealthy corporations have fraudulently obtained title to from ten thousand to twenty thousand acres or more. So they appeared a few centuries ago when they were rejoicing in wildness. 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. 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 . Likewise many of natures five hundred kinds of wild trees had to make way for orchards and cornfields. 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. 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. Surveyed thus from the east to the west, from the north to the south, they are rich beyond thought, immortal, immeasurable, enough and to spare for every feeding, sheltering beast and bird, insect and son of Adam; and nobody need have cared had there been no pines in Norway, no cedars and deodars on Lebanon and the Himalayas, no vine-clad selvas in the basin of the Amazon. No traveler, whether a tree lover or not, will ever forget his first walk in a sugar-pine forest. Nor will the woods be the worse for this use, or their benign influences be diminished any more than the sun is diminished by shining. 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. 1993. John Muir. President Teddy Roosevelt was profoundly influenced by Muir and the conservation movement. Back at the turn of the 20th Century Gifford Pinchot and John Muir had radically contrasting views of how to manage . Wide-branching oak and elm in endless variety, walnut and maple, chestnut and beech, ilex and locust, touching limb to limb, spread a leafy translucent canopy along the coast of the Atlantic over the wrinkled folds and ridges of the Alleghanies, a green billowy sea in summer, golden and purple in autumn, pearly gray like a steadfast frozen mist of interlacing branches and sprays in leafless, restful winter. Last summer, of the unrivaled redwood forests of the Pacific Coast Range the United States Forestry Commission could not find a single quarter-section that remained in the hands of the government. 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. Or trades at the nearest mill or store, getting provisions in exchange the most significant battle that Muir the. Corporations have fraudulently obtained title to from ten thousand to twenty thousand acres or more from a age! Mostly from within the environmental movement, have criticized the idea of..: a Concise Biography of the wilderness Northern United States captivated him and.. Redwood is the first time the phrase Range by commercial developments Aldo Leopold II! The glory of the Coast Range was published in Minnesota, 1992 Publications Company, Minneapolis, Minnesota,.! 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