GROWING CHRISTMAS TREES

   Pull the covers over your head.  Don't get out of bed until January 2, for your wallet's safe being.  It has happened again.  The holidays have snuck up behind and smacked you up alongside the head, taken out your wallet, spent all the money in it and maxed out your credit cards while you check your bank balance everyday to see if you can buy that last gift for someone special, who will down the road, sell it at a garage sale or give it to Goodwill.  The gift will probably never be opened, but it's the thought that counts, right?

   While you're stressed out over spending way too much money, you get blessed with an extra sense of guilt when you pass the Santa ringing his bell and you don't take all the change out of your pocket and throw it into his red pot.  You just put your head down, pretend you don't see the homeless man dressed as Santa and plow your way into the crowd merrily coughing and sneezing on each other, happily spreading and spraying germs within a 4 foot radius of each other, as you get ready for the Thanksgiving and Christmas Holidays to come.

   There is no bigger joy than putting your family in the car and happily speed off to buy a dead evergreen tree, which you'll put in your house, because there is nothing like a dry fire hazard sitting right in the middle of your living room.  A hazard which sucks up water by the quarts, (if you don't spill half of it before you get it to the tree, or when you try to squeeze underneath it to fill its stand), just so the needle wont turn brown and fall all over the presents and into the carpeting, embedding themselves in within the fibers of the carpet.
   But Christmas Trees are "big business".  Isn't that what Christmas is all about!  Making money off selling dead trees.  There are over 21 million trees cut around the country each year for Christmas.  There are over 22,000 Christmas tree farms in the U.S. and they take up over 447,000 acres of land.

   The state of Oregon is happily filled with little animals escaping the sound of chain saws.  Oregon is the nation's top producer of rainy weather and Christmas trees.  Oregonians happily chop down over 6.5 million trees each holiday season.  Clackamas County alone, cuts down about 3 million Christmas Trees a year.
   Farmers make over 500 million dollars a year selling and growing Christmas trees.  The Christmas Tree industry hires over 100,00 people and 98% of all Christmas trees are grown on farms.

   Pennsylvania has the most Christmas tree farms in the United States, at 2,164 farms.  Besides Oregon and Pennsylvania, the top two states for growing Christmas trees,  Michigan, North Carolina, Washington and Wisconsin produce approximately 1 million trees annually also.  Christmas trees are grown in all 50 states, ncluding Hawaii and Alaska.
   More than 2,000 trees are planted per acre.  On average, 1000 to 1500 trees will survive.  In the North, on average, 750 newly planted tress will survive to maturity.  When they are big enough to be sold, they are sheared to give them that Christmas tree shape.  They are usually harvested at 6 to 7 feet tall.  It takes 6 to 10 years of fighting heavy rain, wind, hail, drought and infestations of insects to get to be a mature tree.

   The best selling trees are Scotch pine, Douglas fir, Noble fir, Fraser fir, Virginia pin, Balsam fir and White pine.  So when it's time for you to think about getting your tree for Christmas, remember everything that goes into the business of Christmas tree farming and what the tree had to go through to go from a seedling to a full grown tree ready to be harvested or cut down and enjoyed in your home this Christmas Season!