All posts tagged with forests

German-born forester Wilhelm Schlich (1840-1925) helped establish forestry as a scientific discipline in Great Britain. He emphasized sustainable forestry practices and the importance of preserving the productive power of the soil as a silvicultural objective.

When Galen Clark’s The Big Trees of California, their History and Characteristics, was published, in 1907, he was 93 years old. It had been 50 years since he first came to live in the Mariposa Grove in Yosemite Valley. He had spent most of those years in the midst of the giant sequoias, serving as a guide and educator, and fighting for the protection of these natural wonders.

The noted naturalist and conservationist John Muir met Galen Clark on his first visit to Yosemite, and later, in his writing on The Yosemite, called him “the best mountaineer I ever met, and one or the kindest and most amiable of all my mountain friends.” Along with Muir, Clark was instrumental in Yosemite’s preservation and development as a national park.

At the turn of the 20th century, Boston saw a rapid increase in human settlement and industrialization which quickly transformed the once pristine Commonwealth into a highly developed, unsightly, and unhealthy metropolis. The movement to preserve what was left of Greater Boston’s natural wonders was inspired by the writings by transcendental thinkers like Ralph Waldo Emerson and Henry David Thoreau, who were advocates of the idea to “keep the New World new.” Local activists for the cause included Wilson Flagg, Elizur Wright, Sylvester Baxter, and Charles Eliot.

As part of our regular BHL & Our Users series, Connie Rinaldo (MCZ Librarian and BHL Executive Committee Member) recently caught up with Cam Webb, a Senior Research Scientist at the Arnold Arboretum of Harvard University.  We were very pleased to hear about how he has been exploring BHL and what he discovered.