NOVEMBER 12, 2009 ISSUE
Choose and Cut Christmas Tree Program Underway
Santa's Branch Office
Many readers are old enough to remember striking out with their parents across the cold countryside with saw and hatchet in hand to find a tree—not just any tree—a tree that had the makings to be transformed and decorated to light up the darkness of winter. A tree that would fit perfectly into each family’s home; not too tall, not to short and just the right diameter, an evergreen. Recall the excitement?
Though things have changed, the tradition lives on in the High Country as the annual Choose and Cut Christmas Tree Season gets underway on area farms. Thousands of families from the piedmont regions of North Carolina and neighboring states trek into the High Country—especially during the week of Thanksgiving and first weeks of December—in search of the perfect Christmas tree.
Waiting for them are hundreds of area Christmas tree farmers who have toiled over, groomed and cared for each tree for years in preparation for this year’s special moment.
A great crop awaits the customers this year, according to Linda Gragg, the long-time, retiring, executive director of the North Carolina Christmas Tree Association.
“All the rain we’ve had has been good for the trees,” Gragg said. “The rain helps the trees grow and makes them more colorful and longer lasting.”
The good crop she represents could be viewed as a fitting finish to her years of work on behalf of the Christmas tree farmers. Gragg is presently passing the baton of leadership to Jennifer Greene. Gragg said that she was going to enjoy her grandchildren and travel, but a note of melancholy moved through her voice as she talked of past accomplishments with the association like branding the Frazier Firs, the North Carolina Frazier Firs.
“The N.C. Frazier Firs are a product I truly believe in and will always support,” she said.
The Frazier Fir grows best above 3,000 feet elevation and needs a long dormant period. North Carolina has 1,600 growers producing an estimated 50 million Fraser fir Christmas trees growing on more than 25,000 acres. Fraser Fir trees represent more than 90 percent of all species grown in North Carolina.
Gragg said that Ashe County ranked No. 1 in trees grown, Alleghany is second and Avery and Watauga almost equal each other and are third and forth.
“About 1/4 million trees will be harvested by Choose and Cut providing an enormous economic impact,” she said.
In Ashe County alone, Della Deal, agriculture extension agent, said that 30 Choose and Cut Farms with 250 employees sell 7,000 trees and 4,000 wreathes and garlands bringing in $700,000 in direct farm gross revenue during the program. She also said that “Avery and Watauga Choose and Cut Farms were much more numerous, larger and enjoyed lots more business.”
According to Steve Troxler, North Carolina’s commissioner of agriculture, “The state’s Christmas tree industry is ranked second in the nation in the number of trees harvested and is No. 1 in economic impact, monies generated.”
The Choose and Cut Season is perfectly timed to benefit area businesses, motels, cabins, bed and breakfasts and the tourist industry. Mac Forehand, director of the Boone Convention and Visitor’s Bureau, which promotes the Choose and Cut program on the standalone website, chooseandcutfestival.com, said that “the program grows in popularity each year. One year my family and I were returning to Boone during Thanksgiving on Highway 421 and we started counting trees on top of cars. We counted over 250 vehicles carrying trees down the mountain in a short period.”
Indeed, The Washington Post writing about the Choose and Cut program in 2006 stated that Boone was Santa’s Branch Office. “How far would you go for the perfect Christmas tree? Around Boone, N.C., just across the Virginia border, they come from all over. They come for the long mountain views, weekend cabins, cozy inns and the Blue Ridge Parkway. But mostly they come for the Fraser firs, the Cadillac of Christmas trees.”
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