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. This excerpt from "The American Forests," was part of John Muir's 1897 campaign to save the American wilderness. Muir Inlet and Muir Glacier are both named for him. He returned with the famous story. Carter argues that it is the duty of everyone to preserve the Arctic Refuge rather than dig holes in it to extract oil. No place is too good for good men, and still there is room. The two most fascinating questions about extraterrestrial life are where it is found and what it is like. 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. Each article originally printed in this magazine is available here, complete and unedited from the historical print. While in Alaska, I saw the loveliest forests and scenery I've ever seen. John Muir, (born April 21, 1838, Dunbar, East Lothian, Scotlanddied December 24, 1914, Los Angeles, California, U.S.), Scottish-born American naturalist, writer, and advocate of U.S. forest conservation, who was largely responsible for the establishment of Sequoia National Park and Yosemite National Park, which are located in California. 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. 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. The Indians with stone axes could do them no more harm than could gnawing beavers and browsing moose. > The forests of America, however slighted. HASC - Digital Archives The same thing is true of the mines, which consume and destroy indirectly immense quantities of timber with their innumerable fires, accidental or set to make open ways, and often without regard to how far they run. Muir walked through these groves of giant sequoias and thought them to be among the most fascinating of ecosystems certainly worth whatever protection humans could afford them. 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 is shown by Mr. E. A. Bowers, formerly Inspector of the Public Land Service, the foundation of our protective policy, which has never protected, is an act passed March 1, 1817, which authorized the Secretary of the Navy to reserve lands producing live-oak and cedar, for the sole purpose of supplying timber for the navy of the United States. The enormous logs, too heavy to handle, are blasted into manageable dimensions with gunpowder. After the Atlantic coast from Maine to Georgia had been mostly cleared and scorched into melancholy ruins, the overflowing multitude of bread and money seekers poured over the Alleghanies into the fertile middle West, spreading ruthless devastation ever wider and farther over the rich valley of the Mississippi and the vast shadowy pine region about the Great Lakes. Chapter 2: How is Sustainability a Political Issue? Author: SAISD Created Date: 06/16/2016 20:10:00 Last modified by: SAISD 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. I suppose we need not go mourning the buffaloes. 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. Timber is as necessary as bread, and no scheme of management failing to recognize and properly provide for this want can possibly be maintained. Ginger Wadsworth. 14 minutes. Critics including the . John Muir (1838-1914) was born in Scotland and emigrated to Wisconsin as a young boy. 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.''. John Muir wrote a great essay, known as the "The American Forest" which spoke about the great beauty of nature and Chief Seattle gave a great speech known as the " Environmentalist Statement" which spoke about sustainability and the respect we need to provide and invoke. 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 diameter, lordly monarchs proclaiming the gospel of beauty like apostles. But light is surely coming, and the friends of destruction will preach and bewail in vain. Thence westward were oak and elm, hickory and tupelo, gum and liriodendron, sassafras and ash, linden and laurel, spreading on ever wider in glorious exuberance over the great fertile basin of the Mississippi, over damp level bottoms, low dimpling hollows, and round dotting hills, embosoming sunny prairies and cheery park openings, half sunshine, half shade ; while a dark wilderness of pines covered the region around the Great Lakes. As for reservation and protection of forests, it seems as silly and needless to them as protection and reservation of the ocean would be; both appearing to be boundless and inexhaustible. Home | . They are invited to heaven, and may well be allowed in America. During his lengthy wanderings, Muir contemplated man's relationship to nature. 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. Passionate and . 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. John Muir's 1897 Case for Saving America's Forests - The Atlantic August 1897 Issue Explore Technology The American Forests "God has cared for these trees, saved them from drought, disease,. Merely what belongs to all alike is reserved, and every acre that is left should be held together under the federal government as a basis for a general policy of administration for the public good. Muir strategically uses God to appeal to the readers of the time. 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. Travelers through the West in summer are not likely to forget the fire-work displayed along the various railway tracks. Even lumbermen in these regions, long accustomed to steal, are now willing and anxious to buy lumber for their mills under cover of law: some possibly from a late second growth of honesty, but most, especially the small mill-owners, simply because it no longer pays to steal where all may not only steal, but also destroy, and in particular because it costs about as much to steal timber for one mill as for ten, and therefore the ordinary lumberman can no longer compete with the large corporations. you may Download the file to your hard drive. Conservation in the United States can be traced back to the 19th century with the formation of the first National Park. Theres big money in it, and your grub costs nothing. The Civil War had just ended. Its a mighty good business, and youre your own boss, and the whole things fun.. 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. Accessibility Statement, John Muir: A Reading Bibliography by Kimes, Holt-Atherton Special Collections homepage. The American Forests by John Muir (1901) . 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. A leaf, a flower, a stone - the simple beauty of nature filled John Muir with joy. 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. 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. He was 29. President Roosevelt's concern for the environment was influenced by American naturalists, such as John Muir, and by his own political appointees, including Gifford Pinchot, Chief of Forestry. Enthralled by nature from a young age, Roosevelt cherished and promoted our nation's landscapes and wildlife. A Wind-Storm in the Forests. John Muir, Wilderness Protector. Flying Spur Press, Yosemite, California. He came to the San Francisco area in 1868 and there he discovered the Sierra Mountains. Any fool can destroy trees. 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