GROWING OF CHRISTMAS TREES 
A PROFITABLE BUSINESS 
Only a few years ago it was an easy matter to purchase Christmas trees 
in quantity for use in our larger cities, but it is getting more difficult every 
year to locate suitable trees, trees of good shape and proper size. Prices are 
advancing with the increasing scarcity and the growing of evergreens for 
Christmas trees is no longer a gamble, it may well come under the head of 
sound investment. 
Christmas trees can be grown on land unsuited for agriculture, on old, 
worn out mowings, hillside pastures, almost any type of land will grow trees. 
The small trees, which can be purchased at very reasonable rates from The 
Keene Forestry Associates, Keene, N. H., are planted in the early spring 
just as soon as the frost is out of the ground. There is but little farm 
work at that time, it is too early as a rule for plowing and certainly too 
early for seeding. The harvesting comes in November and December, another 
comparatively slack time on the farm. 
Trees most favored are the spruces, Norway spruce and white spruce, and 
sometimes Colorado blue spruce, the firs, Douglas fir and balsam fir. Scotch 
Pine and Austrian Pine are used to a considerable extent. 
Four-year old transplants are generally used for making Christmas tree 
plantings, although three-year old transplants are at times used to good 
advantage. Seedlings as a rule do not give as good results as they will not 
withstand drought as well as the larger, transplanted trees, and unless the 
trees can be watered it is not advisable to use them for permanent planting. 
And watering a large plantation as a rule is out of the question. While some 
good results have been obtained in planting seedlings during wet seasons, the 
writer’s experience of nearly forty years would tend to favor the larger, trans- 
planted trees. 
In planting trees some thought must be given to the spacing. The height 
of the average Christmas tree as sold in the market is about seven feet or 
slightly over. As a well shaped tree is the only kind which it is worth while 
to grow, sufficient space must be allowed for the trees to spread so as not to 
interfere with each other and shade out any part of the lower branches. A 
tree seven or eight feet in height should have a spread of about four feet at — 
the base; so that one must allow that much space between the trees when 
planting them. However, there is beginning to grow a demand for smaller 
Christmas trees, from eighteen inches up to three feet in height. They are 
used for potting, to be sold as live trees, and also are cut at about three feet 
high for the table trees—trees which are stood on a table instead of the floor. 
The sale of small potted Christmas trees is increasing very rapidly and they 
are retailing at from $2 to $3 each. Small potted live evergreens, especially 
the Colorado spruce and other ornamental evergreen trees, also find a ready 
sale at roadside stands during the touring season. Therefore it is often advan- 
tageous to plant the trees closer together, about two feet, or less, apart. The 
trees can be thinned when they are from one to three feet high and sold for 
