64 THE PLANT WORLD 



" As do most great enterprises, the harvesting of Christmas trees owes 

 its inception to New York men. About twenty-five years ago a party of 

 duck hunters from the metropolis went to Maine on a yacht, coasting 

 along the eastern shore of Penobscot Bay from Orland to Brooklin. This 

 was a period in which farmers and timber-land owners were speculating 

 as to how long it would be before the entire State was given over to fir 

 trees. Several observant members of the party remarking the millions 

 of young firs which crowded the headlands, concluded that such sym- 

 metrical bushes would make excellent Christmas trees, and, with charac- 

 teristic metropolitan enterprise, at once opened negotiations with the 

 fanners for the purchase of a few cargoes. 



' ' At first the farmers thought the New Yorkers were simply having a 

 huge old lark at their expense, never having encountered anybody so fool- 

 ish and unsophisticated as to buy firs. But when the visitors opened their 

 pocket-books and offered their money they were convinced of their sin- 

 cerity. So they fell to with a will and loaded several schooners with the 

 Maine hills' worthless growth. At various ports as far south as Boston 

 the tree-filled vessels touched, discharging trees at each port. 



" The business was an immense success from the ver>' start, and the 

 original members of the Christmas tree syndicate made money hand over 

 fist. After a while they sold out at a profit to other concerns, and they 

 made money too. Others learning of their success, entered the Christ- 

 mas tree field and so within twenty-five years from the time the first load 

 was sent out, fir lands have advanced in price from $100 for a town- 

 ship — a trifling matter of some 23,000 acres — to $10 and $15 for a single 

 acre. It only took them about ten years to strip off all the trees on the 

 seaboard, after which the Christmas bush suppliers went inland, sending 

 their wares to Boston and New York by the train loads. 



" When the business was first opened no more than four schooners 

 were employed and their united cargoes contained no more than 5,000 

 trees. To-day six times that number of vessels skirt along the coast as 

 far south as New York, while dozens of train loads are sent to various 

 points of distribution in the State of New York and the New England 

 States. East year 1,000,000 trees were shipped from Maine. 



Harvesting the Christmas trees is conducted in no careless or hap- 

 hazard sort of way. Not every fir will answer the purpose. The 

 ideal tree should be intensely green, symmetrical, straight and graceful, 

 with an abundance of limbs stijGf enough to hold up the donations and 

 ornaments they are designed to bear. So those engaged in harvesting 

 first survey the field and mark out a number of thickets of sizable firs. 

 One man, an expert, does the cutting, while another follows closely in his 

 wake and sorts the fallen trees into bundles of equal length, binding them 

 together with stout spun yarn. Then a teamster, driving a pair of 



