Pine Plantations at the Park
In an earlier tidbit I talked about the YMCA’s harvesting and sale of Christmas trees but I did not mention how this all came about. As the YMCA began purchasing land from the farmers surrounding the lakes, they also began talking about the creation of a Christmas Tree Farm to help them in their fundraising efforts. Since many of the fields were open areas (crops and pasture) they began massive plantings of seedlings of pine, spruce and fir to be used in the future as Christmas trees. The average time for seedlings to grow into usable Christmas trees is 7-9 years so the YMCA was very far-sighted in their plans. But in order to be the beautiful trees that people would buy for their families, the trees had to be groomed. This is a meticulous process that takes time and energy, mostly man hours because of the sheer number of trees. To accomplish the grooming, the YMCA had to use razor sharp machetes (knives) which were able to slice through the branches of the trees with ease.
Beginning in early June of each year, the YMCA would use the “knives” to top off excess growth from the year before. It had to be in June so the remaining branches could set the buds again for the new growth (usually 2-3 buds). In order to groom the trees, the men doing the work had to learn the proper way to prune the trees. Using the knife they had to make a sweeping motion from top to bottom following the angle of the tree to create the cone effect that was desired. They would work around the tree moving to the right and finish by lopping off 2/3 of the top spike. If the worker was left-handed, they would go left around the tree. The process not only created an aesthetically pleasing tree, but one with thicker branching (remember the 2-3 new buds).
The finished trees were usually harvested in early November each year. The men working had access to a bundling machine so they would put the tree through the machine which would compress the branches and encase them in a mesh for easier transportation. The Christmas tree harvesting went on for many years until the late 1980’s. After that, sales dropped due to the time, cost and commercialization of the Christmas tree business. The tree farm (or plantation) has since become mostly pine and new growth areas. In future years, the plan is to reforest some of the areas into the original Oak Savanna woodlands of the past. There is much to do to accomplish that transition.
