the american forests john muir summary

He is best known for his work as a conservationist, particularly his role in the establishment of Yosemite National Park in California. 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. In one case which came under the observation of Mr. Bowers, it was the practice of a lumber company to hire the entire crew of every vessel which might happen to touch at any port in the redwood belt, to enter one hundred and sixty acres each and immediately deed the land to the company, in consideration of the company's paying all expenses and giving the jolly sailors fifty dollars apiece for their trouble. 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. President Teddy Roosevelt was profoundly influenced by Muir and the conservation movement. Word Count: 490. Rachel Carson, The Obligation to Endure. Muir became politically active to protect Yosemite from being threatened by commercial developments. Flying Spur Press, Yosemite, California. "Climb the mountains and get their good tidings. 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. Born April 21, 1838, Muir has become America's most famous naturalist and conservationist. Accessibility Statement, John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes, Holt-Atherton Special Collections homepage. 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. His family immigrated to America in 1849 and settled into farm life in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. 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. 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. Still, in the long run the world does not move backward Light is surely coming, and the friends of destruction will preach and bewail in vain. The outcries we hear against forest reservations come mostly from thieves who are wealthy and steal timber by wholesale. The axe is not yet at the root of every tree, but the sheep is, or was before the national parks were established and guarded by the military, the only effective and reliable arm of the government free from the blight of politics. '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 . John Muir, (born April 21, 1838, Dunbar, East Lothian, Scot.died Dec. 24, 1914, Los Angeles, Calif., U.S.), U.S. naturalist and conservationist. Well, it didn't happen by accident or guesswork. John Muir (1838-1914), the great naturalist and founder of the Sierra Club, has long been a favorite of mine. The American Forests by John Muir (1901) . David Suzuki, The Sacred Balance: Rediscovering Our Place in Nature. 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. 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. The special land agents employed by the General Land Office to protect the public domain from timber depredations are supposed to collect testimony to sustain prosecution, and to superintend such prosecution on behalf of the government, which is represented by the district attorneys. At least none is in sight from the lowlands, and they all might as well be on the moon, as far as scenery is concerned. Its a mighty good business, and youre your own boss, and the whole things fun.. 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. 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. Since then, critics both international and domestic, but mostly from within the environmental movement, have criticized the idea of wilderness. Poem About Beauty Of Forest And Trees Naturalist John Muir and my love of trees inspired this poem. 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. The week that followed Martin Luther King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly forgotten? Publisher's Summary During the past twenty-five years, North American forestry has received increasingly vigorous scrutiny. A Wind-Storm in the Forests. Muir constantly brings up the burning of the forests. 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. 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. Every train rolls on through dismal smoke and barbarous melancholy ruins; and the companies might well cry in their advertisements: Come! Home | Critics including the . 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. 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. The disappearance of the forests in the first place, it is claimed, may be traced in most cases directly to mountain pasturage. The American Forests In decrying the destruction of woodlands by loggers, settlers, and industrialists, Muir, the father of America's conservation movement, advanced the notion that. 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. But when the steel axe of the white man rang out in the startled air their doom was sealed. The Sierra Club is the oldest, largest and most influential conservation organization in the United States. The forest service does not rest satisfied with the present proportion of woodland, but looks to planting the best forest trees it can find in any country, if likely to be useful and to thrive in Japan. See All test questions. 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. They went to the woods to escape aspects of. The fires, whether accidental or set, are allowed to run into the woods as far as they may, thus assuring comprehensive destruction. by man, must have been a great delight to. 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. 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. Muir ended his life living in the care of his Chinese employees. Travelers through the West in summer are not likely to forget the fire-work displayed along the various railway tracks. In the nature of things they had to give place to better cattle, though the change might have been made without barbarous wickedness. 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. 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 . As timber the redwood is too good to live. 331-[365]; no. 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. At university, Muir focused his studies on chemistry, geology and botany. It is the only genuine Erebus route. 234, Muir describes the beauty of trees in the many varied regions across America as "they appeared a few centuries ago when they were rejoicing in wildness." The Wild Parks and Forest Reservations of the West, chapter 1 of 'Our National Parks' by John Muir (1901). 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 first few thousands he sells or trades at the nearest mill or store, getting provisions in exchange. 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. > He closes his long essay with his now-famous statements: "Any fool can destroy trees. Listen to the trailer for Holy Week. America is one of the wealthiest lands in existence yet a funding system is not implemented to save the endangered forests. 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. 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. 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.. 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. Visit the parks associated with John Muir! 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. 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. The Mountains of California, his first book, was published in. Listen to the trailer for Holy Week. The Indians with stone axes could do them no more harm than could gnawing beavers and browsing moose. John Muir (1838-1914) was born in Scotland and emigrated to Wisconsin as a young boy. And botany Collections homepage by Kimes, Holt-Atherton Special Collections homepage burning of the in. The first place, it didn & # x27 ; s most famous naturalist and.! Was profoundly influenced by Muir and the companies might well cry in their advertisements: come a of. Went to the woods to escape aspects of King Jr.s assassination was revolutionaryso why was it nearly?. 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