The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West 2. 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. But this priceless land has been patented, and nothing can be done now about the crazy bargain. Well, it didn't happen by accident or guesswork. 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. 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. Every tree heard the bodeful sound, and pillars of smoke gave the sign in the sky, Many of natures five hundred kinds of wild trees had to make way for orchards and cornfields. 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. Back at the turn of the 20th Century Gifford Pinchot and John Muir had radically contrasting views of how to manage . In particular, from our Earth-based vantage point, we are keen to know where the closest life to us is, and how similar it might be to life on our home planet. In Luke 12 Jesus says, "I've come to bring fire on earth." But light is surely coming, and the friends of destruction will preach and bewail in vain. 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 . you may Download the file to your hard drive. Theres always a market for bear grease, and sometimes you can sell the hams. 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 . 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 . Surely, then, it should not be wondered at that lovers of their country, bewailing its baldness, are now crying aloud, Save what is left of the forests! Clearing has surely now gone far enough; soon timber will be scarce, and not a grove will be left to rest in or pray in. President Teddy Roosevelt was profoundly influenced by Muir and the conservation movement. John Muir Lesson for Kids: Facts & Biography 2022-10-26. 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 (1838-1914) was born in Scotland and emigrated to Wisconsin as a young boy. During the course of his political term, Roosevelt set aside 148 million acres of forest reserves, created 50 regions for the protection of wildlife, founded 16 national monuments and established 5 new national parks. They buy no land, pay no taxes, dwell in a paradise with no forbidding angel either from Washington or from heaven. So we confidently believe it will be with our great national parks and forest reservations. The week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? 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. Only the forests of the West are significant in size and value, and these, although still great, are rapidly vanishing. 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. 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. 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. 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. But most preferred the shake business, until something more profitable and as sure could be found, with equal comfort and independence. Its a mighty good business, and youre your own boss, and the whole things fun.. 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. Another of the company, a bushy-bearded fellow, with a trace of brag in his voice, drawled out: Bird business is well enough for some, but bear is my game, with a deer and a California lion thrown in now and then for change. About seventy million acres it still owns, enough for all the country, if wisely used. 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 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. There is no real sky and no scenery. 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." 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. Muir constantly brings up the burning of the forests. A famous quotation where Muir refers to the Sierra as the "Range of Light" is found within this chapter. 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. A leaf, a flower, a stone - the simple beauty of nature filled John Muir with joy. Any fool can destroy trees. It extends along the western slope, in a nearly continuous belt about ten miles wide, from beyond the Oregon boundary to the south of Santa Cruz, a distance of nearly four hundred miles, and in massive, sustained grandeur and closeness of growth surpasses all the other timber woods of the world. OUR NATIONAL PARKs.-Under this title Mr. John Muir has brought together several papers originally published in the Atlantic Monthly. He came to the San Francisco area in 1868 and there he discovered the Sierra Mountains. With the exception of the timber culture act, under which, in consideration of planting a few acres of seedlings, settlers on the treeless plains got 160 acres each, the above is the only legislation aiming to protect and promote the planting of forests. 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. Thus every mill is a centre of destruction far more severe from waste and fire than from use. On the contrary, all the brains, religion, and superstition of the neighborhood are brought into play to prevent a new growth. 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. Then he goes to work sawing and splitting for the market, tying the shakes in bundles of fifty or a hundred. 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. He concluded that all life forms have inherent significance and the right to exist. 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 . Only the lower, perfectly clear, free-splitting portions of the giant pines are used, perhaps ten to twenty feet from a tree two hundred and fifty in height; all the rest is left a mass of ruins, to rot or to feed the forest fires, while thousands are hacked deeply and rejected in proving the grain. The making of the far-famed New York Central Park was opposed by even good men, with misguided pluck, perseverance, and ingenuity; but straight right won its way, and now that park is appreciated. In any case, it will be hard to teach the pioneers that it is wrong to steal government timber. > 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.''. He is best known for his work as a conservationist, particularly his role in the establishment of Yosemite National Park in California. The 39th president of the United States of America Jimmy Carter fears the domination of domestic use of the Artctic Refuge. 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. A few bolts from the same section that the shakes were made from are split into square sticks and built up to form a chimney, the inside and interspaces being plastered and filled in with mud. The two most fascinating questions about extraterrestrial life are where it is found and what it is like. 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. Accordingly, with no eye to the future, these pious destroyers waged interminable forest wars, 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 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, Emerson says that things refuse to be mismanaged long. For many a century after the ice-ploughs were melted, nature fed them and dressed them every day; working like a man, a loving, devoted, painstaking gardener; fingering every leaf and flower and mossy furrowed bole; bending, trimming, modeling, balancing, painting them with the loveliest colors; bringing over them now clouds with cooling shadows and showers, now sunshine; fanning them with gentle winds and rustling their leaves; exercising them in every fibre with storms, and pruning them; loading them with flowers and fruit, loading them with snow, and ever making them more beautiful as the years rolled by. Home | 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. Thus, with abundance of fuel, shelter and comfort by his own fireside are secured. Nevertheless, under this act wealthy corporations have fraudulently obtained title to from ten thousand to twenty thousand acres or more. Since then, critics both international and domestic, but mostly from within the environmental movement, have criticized the idea of wilderness. His lifelong passion for hiking began when he hiked 1,000 miles from Indianapolis to the Gulf of Mexico in. 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. 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. It seems, therefore, that almost every civilized nation can give us a lesson on the management and care of forests. It has been shown over and over again that if these mountains were to be stripped of their trees and underbrush, and kept bare and sodless by hordes of sheep and the innumerable fires the shepherds set, besides those of the millmen, prospectors, shake-makers, and all sorts of adventurers, both lowlands and mountains would speedily become little better than deserts, compared with their present beneficent fertility. The week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? The Mountains of California, his first book, was published in. It is the citizens of this country who are robbing from and destroying the beautiful forest. 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. Any fool can destroy trees. In "The American Forests", John Muir's purpose is to reveal the disloyalty that Americans have towards their agriculture. 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