John Muir (1838 - 1914) was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. American forester, the first Chief of the US Forest Service and his family was the financial backer for the country's first forestry school (at Yale University), so there can be no doubt where the profession of forestry locates itself in the Muir-Pinchot debate. 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. John Muir (/mjr/; April 21, 1838 - December 24, 1914) was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, environmental philosopher and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. Katherine S. Talmadge. Its focus is the general geology and characteristics of the Sierra Nevada. The ground will be glad to feed them, and the pines will come down from the mountains for their homes as willingly as the cedars came from Lebanon for Solomons temple. Read more from, Butterfield & Co.: In Two Parts. > 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. President Theodore Roosevelt was one of the most powerful voices in the history of American conservation. The Arctic Refuge is a crucial refuge as it is one of the few left in the Arctic and around the world. In "The American Forests", John Muir's purpose is to reveal the disloyalty that Americans have towards their agriculture. 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 Muir in the Sierra Nevada mountains During a mans life only saplings can be grown, in the place of the old trees tens of centuries old that have been destroyed. 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. Twenty or thirty years ago, shakes, a kind of long boardlike shingles split with a mallet and a frow, were in great demand for covering barns and sheds, and many are used still in preference to common shingles, especially those made from the sugar-pine, which do not warp or crack in the hottest sunshine. 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 was born on April 21, 1838 in the small rural town of Dunbar, Scotland. 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 1903, Roosevelt spent four days in Yosemite with Muir, camping with him and learning about the value of the untamed land. John Muir Lesson for Kids: Facts & Biography 2022-10-26. From poetry, novels, and memoirs to journalism, crime writing, and science fiction, the more than 300 volumes published by Library of America are widely . 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. At university, Muir focused his studies on chemistry, geology and botany. The redwood is restricted to the Coast Range, and the big tree to the Sierra. > Taking from the government is with them the same as taking from nature, and their consciences flinch no more in cutting timber from the wild forests than in drawing water from a lake or river. 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. Muir's nature was a pristine refuge from the city. > John Muir founded the Sierra Club in 1892, whose main goal was to "do something for nature and make the mountains glad.". Chuck Roe -A Sesquicentennial Account of John Muir's 1,000 Mile Walk - A review of the landscape 150 years after Muir's walk, with a focus on the progress of land conservation and identification of the many publicly-accessible, protected natural areas now located immediately along Muir's route. Roe's intent was to observe and describe the publicly accessible parks, nature preserves, forests . The volume is from the press of Houghton . University of Northern Iowa UNI ScholarWorks Electronic Theses and Dissertations Graduate College 2016 Three men in the wilderness: Ideas and concepts of 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. 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. Muir, John, 1838-1914 Publication date 1901 Topics National parks and reserves -- United States, Yosemite National Park (Calif.) Publisher Boston, New York : Houghton, Mifflin and Company Collection cdl; americana Digitizing sponsor MSN Contributor University of California Libraries Language English the glory of the world! He concluded that all life forms have inherent significance and the right to exist. The forests of America, however slighted by man, must have been a great delight to God; for they were the best he ever planted. Carter argues that it is the duty of everyone to preserve the Arctic Refuge rather than dig holes in it to extract oil. Read the whole article in the August 1897 Atlantic. Passionate and . Gigantic second and third growth trees are found in the redwoods, forming magnificent temple-like circles around charred ruins more than a thousand years old. In Luke 12 Jesus says, "I've come to bring fire on earth." In the settlement and civilization of the country, bread more than timber or beauty was wanted; and in the blindness of hunger, the early settlers, claiming Heaven as their guide, regarded Gods trees as only a larger kind of pernicious weeds, extremely hard to get rid of. John Muir, The American Forests. The great naturalist also visits the. 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. 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. And in the fullness of time it was planted in groves, and belts, and broad, exuberant, mantling forests, with the largest, most varied, most fruitful, and most beautiful trees in the world. 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. Starting in the i87os, Muir made exploring wilderness and extoling its values a way of life. How strong a voice that metal has! 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. Home | Then he advertises, in whatever way he can, that he has excellent sugar-pine shakes for sale, easy of access and cheap. Accessibility Statement, John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes, Holt-Atherton Special Collections homepage. FAQ | Visit the parks associated with John Muir! The most significant battle that Muir and the Sierra Club ever fought was over the damming of Yosemites Hetch Hetchy Valley. In India systematic forest management was begun about forty years ago, under difficulties presented by the character of the country, the prevalence of running fires, opposition from lumbermen, settlers, etc. 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. 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. 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. But light is surely coming, and the friends of destruction will preach and bewail in vain. T he Mountains of California, published in 1894, is John Muir's first book. John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes 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. On account of the superior skill of our workmen, advantages of climate, and the kind of trees, the charring is generally deeper along our line, and the ashes are deeper, and the confusion and desolation displayed can never be rivaled. Restless to explore more of the country, he left school for what he would call "the University of the Wilderness. University Libraries Back at the turn of the 20th Century Gifford Pinchot and John Muir had radically contrasting views of how to manage . Within the pantheon of environmental greats, few match the stature of John Muir. Under these circumstances, the bawling, blethering oratorical stuff drowns the voice of God himself. 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. In 1913, Congress passed a law that approved the construction of the dam in Hetch Hetchy Valley. 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. 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. He closes his long essay with his now-famous statements: "Any fool can destroy trees. This book deals with both of these key issues. In crafting a sense of place for the forests, Muir is passively working his readers . He educated Americans about the value of the countrys wilderness, inspiring generations of wilderness advocates. Most notably, this was John Muir's first published essay (1871). "No prisoners were taken," recalled the witness to these events . Yet the dawn of a new day in forestry is breaking. Every place is made better by them. John Muir was a Scottish-American naturalist, author, and early advocate of preservation of wilderness in the United States. Drought and barrenness would follow. . 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. 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. But when the steel axe of the white man rang out in the startled air their doom was sealed. His lifelong passion for hiking began when he hiked 1,000 miles from Indianapolis to the Gulf of Mexico in. It is not a book of forestry, but the forest is the most . 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. The outcries we hear against forest reservations come mostly from thieves who are wealthy and steal timber by wholesale. Visit Muir Woods National Monument, located in Marin County, just north of San Francisco. American forests! . The axe and saw are insanely busy, chips are flying thick as snowflakes, and every summer thousands of acres of priceless forests, with their underbrush, soil, springs, climate, scenery, and religion, are vanishing away in clouds of smoke, while, except in the national parks, not one forest guard is employed. 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. The great forests of Northern United States captivated him and fueled . This excerpt from "The American Forests," was part of John Muir's 1897 campaign to save the American wilderness. 357-[393]. Muir, John, "The American Forests" (1897). 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. See also: no. HASC - Digital Archives The two most fascinating questions about extraterrestrial life are where it is found and what it is like. Still, in the long run the world does not move backward. Thus, with abundance of fuel, shelter and comfort by his own fireside are secured. 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. 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. Our National Parks, by John Muir (1901, c. (1901)) - John Muir Writings . 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