CHRISTMAS TREES

Taranaki Daily News, 18 December 1930, Page 6 (Supplement)

CHRISTMAS TREES

MILLIONS SOLD ANNUALLY The origin of the Christmas tree custom is lost in the mists of antiquity. It is probably a relic of the tree worship which formed the basis of several pagan religions of Northern Europe, just as the mistletoe and holly customs are survivals of rites practised by the Druids. Whatever its origin the Christmas tree is now an established institution-in Europe, Canada, America and many other countries. And the custom is, far from dying out. Every succeeding year more and more Christmas trees are bought. The growing-of them -nd their subsequent sale has developed into a big business. , Sometimes, they are grown from seed specially for the Christmas market and sometimes they -.reforest thinnings. Commercially grown trees are sprouted in seed beds just like any garden vegetable. At the age of two years, when they are nothing more than fragile, feathery plants, they are transplanted to trenched rowe. They remain there, with the soil heaped well over their roots, for another two or three years. They are then hardy enough to face their final removal, which is to a well ordered plantation where . thousands of trees of various sizes are waiting for the advent of the Christmas that will see them uprooted or cut. * , • f

Forest thinnings are self-sown trees which have fought a hard struggle’for existence in the shady depths of some forest. If they were left to grow unchecked they would hinder the growth of valuable timber trees. Many of the seedlings a- d saplings, would die from lack of sunlight and 'ustenance, and their rotting branches would become breeding places for fungi and insects which would eventually attack and harm even the giants of the forest. Of the survivors a few would develop into valuable timber trees of their own accord, but many, would .never be anything more than stunted cripples. Good forestry demands that the saplings shall be thinned out annually, and as, in th.- case of Christmas trees, the things can be sold at a good price, good forestry is good business. 'Specially grown trees are usually better than those that grow in a forest. .The former are likely to have a better shape than the latter. English Christmas trees, when not grown in England, are imported from Norway,- Sweden, Germany and Holland. In Germany the cult of the . Christmas tree has reached a very high stage of ‘ development. There is scarcely a home in Germany which cannot display a decorated tree at Yuletide. In England a Christmas tree is found in one house out of every three. In America the proportion is somewhat lower, one home in four, but her larger population makes America the largest • user of Christmas trees in the world. Every year , about ten million Christmas trees are bought by American parents. Most of them are .home-grown, . although Canada supplies some. Big business methods have even invaded the Christmas tree industry in America. Special brands of trees are advertised and each of these is sold with a label certifying its origin. First ■ favourites in the public taste are trees cut from the national forests by the United States Forest Service. Owing to the cost of transport, Canada finds it difficult to compete in the American market, .but she nevertheless manages to export some three millions of trees every year, some of them to points as far distant as Chicago and New Orleans. Of these, half-a-million come from Quebec, putting some £20,000 in the pockets of the exporters for what was regarded some years ago as useless slash only fit for starting stove to— - .