184 



AMERICAN FORESTRY 



logging tools, loaned the Department 

 by commercial ' companies, proved a 

 center of interest. 



One end of the large laboratory in 

 which the exhibit was held, portrayed 

 realistically a complete camp outfit for 

 forestry work, giving the visitors a 

 good idea of how foresters live and 

 work in the field. 



For the convenience of Farmers' 

 Week visitors, and incidentally to 

 draw a larger crowd to the Forest ry 

 Building, the students' organization, 



the Cornell Forestry Club, helped out 

 in the program by running a lunch 

 counter, thereby as well somewhat 

 increasing the funds in the Club's 

 treasury. 



Judged by the number of persons in 

 attendance and the interest shown, the 

 Department of Forestry had reason to 

 feel that this Farmers' Week was one of 

 the most successful ever held. Essen- 

 tially it brought the practical importance 

 of forestry directly home to the people in 

 New York State whom it most concerns. 



JOHN MUIR 



By George B. Sud worth 



IN THE passing of John Muir, poet- 

 naturalist and author, the State and 

 Nation loses one of the most pro- 

 found students of nature and its 

 boundless treasures. Deep love of the 

 wild solitude of the mountains impelled 

 him always to explore his home State 

 as no one else has done. On foot and 

 alone he toiled ceaselessly over desert, 

 through canyons, up mountain slopes, 

 and to the deep recesses of trackless 

 forests that he might learn their every 

 secret. Undefiled nature, in all of its 

 magnificent grandeur, ever possessed an 

 appeal to him that few only of his 

 intimate friends could fully appreciate. 

 To him the life even of the humblest 

 flower was sacred. He was not a 

 hunter-naturalist, nor a collector of 

 dried plants or of other natural objects, 

 for he would have left them all as he 

 had found them. He preferred rather 

 to see each denizen of the wild, each 

 wild flower in its chosen home, and to 

 learn its life-history from nature's own 

 museum and herbarium. Love of the 

 Creator's work, as he saw it on every 

 hand, was profound and it pained him 

 deeply to see animal life destroyed, to 

 see the woodman's ax lay low a giant 

 tree, or grazing herds despoil the delicate 

 humbler plants he knew so well. 



His was a poetic nature that saw in 

 plant and animal life the greatest inter- 

 est to human beings only through a 



knowledge and an enjoyable use of them 

 that affords protection and preservation . 

 John Muir's explorations extended far 

 beyond the confines of his home State- 

 even to the Old World, whither he 

 journeyed in search of nature's truths. 

 But those of us who value his effort in 

 forest preservation, like to dwell upon 

 the great work he did here in saving 

 the Big Trees of his State. No one 

 knew so well as he the wonderful natural 

 heritage California holds for future 

 generations in the giant sequoias of the 

 Sierras and the lofty redwoods of its 

 coast hills. He had not the lumber- 

 man's view of long ago, that these forests 

 were for use, without regard for their 

 duration, or for their unique historical 

 interest to future generations. Nor had 

 he the forester's view that may be even 

 these rare timber resources might be 

 preserved by wise use. He saw only 

 that these greatest of living plants, 

 which number their ages by thousands 

 of years, would some day be swept away 

 by human greed and irrevocably lost 

 to posterity. It seemed to him that 

 the American people would not be for- 

 given this needless sacrifice, and that it 

 would forever cloud the good name of 

 his home State. He undertook to save 

 them. He brought to his task an elo- 

 quence of word pictures which no one 

 possessed, and to him belongs in large 

 measure the honor of having first 



