8 THE CULTIVATED EVERGREENS 



now conducted, the owners of the land from which the trees are 

 cut seldom make much profit. When carload lots are shipped, 

 particularly if the trees are graded as to size and condition, the 

 returns may be worth while. There is, however, considerable 

 risk in the Christmas-tree business, especially when a local 

 market is overstocked. Each year after Christmas many per- 

 fectly good trees are hauled to the city dump to be burned. 

 To be assured of a reasonable return, the rational procedure for 

 the Christmas-tree owner is to find a market in a neighboring 

 town or city and supply the retail stores directly. By this 

 method he will probably gain much more than when the trees 

 are handled by a series of middlemen. 



Very commonly the question is raised as to whether the 

 cutting and use of Christmas trees is not a great waste, and 

 whether steps should not be taken to discourage or prohibit it. 

 In the opinion of the United States Department of Agriculture, 

 the custom is so old, so well grounded, and so venerated, that 

 even if it were economically somewhat indefensible, these 

 aspects would and should continue to outweigh economic con- 

 siderations. But, say the foresters, the cutting of trees for 

 Christmas is proper and wholly justifiable. No other use to 

 which these trees could be put is any more worthy than to make 

 them add to the joy of mankind through their use by children 

 on this great festival of the year. True conservation of the 

 forest is not found in abstaining from the use of trees, but in a 

 rational system of forest management. The Christmas tree is 

 a legitimate by-product of the forest. If the spruce and fir 

 trees that are so used were left standing, to be cut later for the 

 manufacture of paper pulp, it is wholly pertinent to inquire 

 whether the joy of a group of children in their Christmas tree 

 does not outbalance the value of a page or two of the comic 

 section of a Sunday supplement. 



