Area sales reflect trend across U.S.
Billy King’s family has been selling Christmas trees in Bruceton Mills since 1947.
Chances you, someone in your family, or someone you know has purchased a tree at King’s Farm. It has become a tradition for many to pick out their holiday tree and cut it down. Prices for choose-and-cut trees vary anywhere from $40 to $200.
King, 57, sells about 400 trees between the day after Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve. People come to the Preston County farm from Charleston, Pittsburgh and even further.
“I have one customer who lives in Salisbury, Md.,” King said. “He drives five hours each way.”
Demand for King’s Farm Christmas trees has been growing every year, so much so that King had to start a reservation list to ensure regular customers would get a tree, usually a Fraser fir. To get on the list, a person has to agree to buy a tree from King for five years. Besides a steady income, it also guarantees King will have trees available for the following year’s season.
“My father said if you take care of the front seat, then the back seat will return,” King said.
What’s happening at King’s Farm mirrors what is taking place nationally. The sale of “real” Christmas trees is growing, with sales numbers expected to hit around 28 million this year.
“The sales of real trees went up 20% last year,” said Doug Hundley, the seasonal spokesman for the National Christmas Tree Association, an industry trade group in Littleton, Colo.
“We truly hope it’s the millennial generation, who we believe may be more environmentally natured, buying more real trees,” he added.
During this holiday season, Hundley said 95 million American homes will have a Christmas tree. Around 75% of those will be artificial trees, while the remaining 25% will be real trees, he said.
“Real trees last one year, and fake trees last three to five years,” Hundley said in an email.
The tree business
It takes about 10 years for a tree to mature, King said. During that time, however, King said it’s typical for him to lose 50% of his crop to hungry deer in January, fickle weather and landscaping accidents. (The NCTA said the Christmas trees are typically 5 to 7 years old when harvested.)
“Think about it, the trees are the only thing in January that’s green,” he said. “Deer are vegetarians, after all.”
About 50,000 trees are harvested in West Virginia each year, ranking the state 23rd in terms of production, according to the NCTA. Oregon topped the list with 6.5 million; North Carolina, second with 4.3 million; Michigan, third with 1.8 million; Pennsylvania, fourth with 1.1 million, and Wisconsin, fifth with 612,000. Rounding out the top 10 in descending order were Washington, Virginia, New York, Maine and Connecticut.
The average retail price of a tree is $78 and the wholesale price is $35, the NCTA said. In the Morgantown area, prices of trees that have been cut and can be found in a seasonal tree lot vary from $40 to $65.
Matthew Furbee, of Furbee Concessions in Sabraton, has been running a tree lot in the parking lot of the Golden Corral Buffet & Grill on Monongahela Boulevard for the last four years.
“I am hoping to sell between 300 and 400 trees this year,” said Furbee, who had to replenish his supply already from suppliers in Rural Valley, Pa., and Bradford, Pa.
The NCTA said 32.8 million trees were purchased in the U.S. last year. And last year, 23.6 million fake trees were bought with an average price of $104, the association said.
Choose-and-cut farms, like King’s, accounted for 28% of the trees sold last year in the U.S., as did chain stores like Kroger’s, Walmart, Home Depot and Lowe’s. Other sources of fresh trees were retail lots, 23%; nursery and garden centers, 10%; nonprofit groups like Boy Scouts and churches, 6%; with online and other sources accounting for 3% each, the NCTA said.
The most popular kinds of Christmas trees are the balsam fir, which tends to be the most fragrant. Other popular varieties include the Douglas fir, the Fraser fir, the Scotch pine, and the Colorado blue spruce, which can be found in the White House this year.
Caring for the tree
Trees from choose-and-cut farms won’t absorb water as quickly as those already cut. Before buying a tree, test the branches to make sure they’re still fresh, said Dave McGill, a forest resources specialist and professor with the West Virginia University Extension Service.
“Once you get the tree home, slice the trunk of the tree again just to make sure it’s a fresh cut,” he said. “Stand it up in your stand; make sure it’s real stable. You also want to make sure you water it every day. That’s the critical thing.”
Before putting the tree up, make sure about an inch is removed from the bottom of the trunk to ensure it absorbs water from the stand, keeping it moist. Water levels should be checked every day, the NCTA said. Also, don’t put a tree near a heater, or too close to a stove or open fireplace.
While December is obviously a profitable month for Billy King, who handles most of the farm’s operation himself, it’s not about money.
“We grow our trees for the love of Christmas,” said King, who trims each tree he sells himself.
