Keystone Grown

How Pennsylvania farms 720,000 Christmas trees a year

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Taking a direct route, Santa has to travel 3,400 miles from the North Pole to Philadelphia. In comparison, your Christmas tree will have barely moved. That’s because there’s a high likelihood that your tree is one of the approximately 720,000 grown in the state of Pennsylvania.

Christmas tree lore runs deep around these parts. Don’t take our word for it, Taylor Swift grew up on an 11-acre Christmas tree farm in Reading – she even wrote a song about it.

That’s because Pennsylvania and New Jersey played a significant role in shaping the Christmas tree industry. Pennsylvania is still home to 1,301 Christmas tree farms, the second most in the nation, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

Christmas trees harvested by county annually in Pennsylvania and New Jersey
00
0 - 5k0 – 5k
5k - 20k5k – 20k
20k - 50k20k – 50k
50k - 110k50k – 110k

Indiana, Pa. was once known as the "Christmas Tree Capital of the World."
Columbia, Pa. was where the technique of shearing Christmas trees was invented.
Mercer, N.J. was where the first commercial Christmas trees were grown.
Philly
Pittsburgh
Data: U.S. Department of Agriculture

America’s very first Christmas tree farm was established just outside of Trenton, according to Henry H. Albers and Ann Kirk Davis, authors of the Wonderful World of Christmas Trees. In 1901, a farmer named William McGalliard planted 25,000 Norway spruce trees on his farm in Mercer County, and would later sell his trees seven years later for $1 each.

Before McGalliard’s innovation, most yule trees were wild evergreen conifers (think green cones) cut from forests or abandoned farm land.

A 2000 Inquirer [article](https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-philadelphia-inquirer-germans-and-th/33478920/) on Philly and Pennsylvania’s role in establishing the Christmas tree tradition. The Christmas tree in the early illustration is indicative of how wild Christmas trees were far less dense and conical before tree shaping was invented.
A 2000 Inquirer article on Philly and Pennsylvania’s role in establishing the Christmas tree tradition. The Christmas tree in the early illustration is indicative of how wild Christmas trees were far less dense and conical before tree shaping was invented.newspaper.com

Although the origins of decorating Christmas trees indoors are uncertain — often attributed by historians to early German immigrants — archival Inquirer articles have claimed that Philadelphians were among the first Americans to promote the tradition.

Although the growing industry began in Jersey, Pennsylvania farmers were instrumental in improving Christmas tree cultivation through the invention of techniques that are still practiced to this day.

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Fred Musser of Indiana County, Pa., started growing seedlings that he sold to other Christmas tree farmers in order to improve the quality of the trees, becoming the nation’s first ever Christmas tree nursery in the late 1920s. Andrew Abraczinskas, who first planted trees in Columbia County in 1915, invented the widely adopted process of shearing the sides of trees such that the resulting trees would keep a dense, conical “Christmas tree” shape.

McGalliard, Musser, and Abraczinskas’s work effectively ended the practice of harvesting wild trees and heavily influenced how trees are grown today:

  • Many growers buy young plants from tree nurseries where they were raised from seeds that have been genetically curated for the best chance of survival, either in seedbeds or as individual plugs.

  • Planting happens as soon as the ground thaws in the spring, typically in March. Trees establish themselves better if planted by mid-April, when temperatures rise and new growth begins to emerge.

  • After about the third growing year, growers wait until August for the new growth to harden before trimming the tree. Every year, the tree must be trimmed again, the base around the trunk pruned, and sprayed with pesticides.

  • Growers trim the sides to form the classic conical Christmas tree shape. This directs the tree’s energy upward and encourages denser needle foliage.

  • Trees reach their ideal marketable height of six or seven feet after about seven years, depending on the species. In the holiday harvest season, retail customers can select and cut their own tree, which is then netted by a mechanical baler for easy transport home to be adorned and adored.

While most of the growing process is the same, there are in fact a few different species of trees used for Christmas trees: notably: Firs, Pines, and Spruces. Each region will be better at growing specific subspecies within those three.

“Christmas tree species that you'll find growing in any production region reflect the climate and what grows well there. For instance, in the Pacific Northwest, they grow a lot of Noble Fir and Douglas fir,” said Rick Bates, Associate Professor or Horticulture at Penn State, who also advises growers on Christmas tree management.

“Here in Pennsylvania, we grow a lot of Fraser fir and Douglas fir and a handful of other species.”

TK!

Fir trees make up 60–70% of Christmas trees from Pennsylvania. They have flat, soft, long-lasting needles and some, like Douglas firs, have a citrus scent. Fraser firs are currently the most popular yule tree in the country, with European varieties like Turkish, Nordmann, and Korean firs introduced in the past 20 years.

TK!

Pine trees with slender, bundled needles and a sharp, earthy scent. They have a long history in Pennsylvania Christmas tree cultivation. Scotch pines, promoted by early innovator Musser, along with Eastern white and red pines, were once the state’s most popular Christmas tree.

TK!

Spruce trees, including the bluish-green Colorado spruce, have square, stiff needles that hold ornaments well but can be prickly and shed quickly. Norway spruces were the first commercially grown Christmas trees near Trenton.

Managing a Christmas tree farm can be fun, says Gerrit Strathmeyer II, a tree farmer in York County and president of the Pennsylvania Christmas Tree Growers Association, but the work is also a years-long endeavor that is logistically and physically demanding.

“Think of farming Christmas trees like farming corn or soybeans. They’re on what’s called a one year rotation — we’re on a 10 year rotation.”

The work is tough and labor-intensive. Planting begins in the still-chilly early spring, while growers wait until the hottest late summer months to start manually shearing, as Strathmeyer recounts: “I remember my high school days growing up, my summer jobs were just working in the field for eight, nine, ten hours a day.”

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Come the winter months, while everyone else enjoys the festive season, this is the busiest time for growers, who take inventory and harvest trees.

Russell Wagner, a former board member of the Pennsylvania Christmas Tree Growers Association, whose farm is located 45 miles north of Harrisburg, has been monitoring the snow forecast in preparation for a busy work week.

“If we get a lot of snow, it can really hamper things, though light snow just makes it more Christmassy.”

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Strathmeyer said that his dad and uncles were at their Christmas tree peak in the late ‘90s and early 2000s. “They had 2,500 acres of Chrstmas trees and were selling around 120,000 cut Christmas trees.

Today, Strathmeyer sells around 22,000 trees a year, and the industry is no longer at its pinnacle. In the most recent USDA Census of Agriculture (2022), Pennsylvania had only 60% as many Christmas tree farms as it did 20 years ago.

Wagner attributes this to the fact that “the initial cost to get into the business is prohibitive. Unless you’re already a Christmas tree grower and another generation is going to continue it, it’s very difficult to get started.”

The industry was also disrupted by the advent of the artificial tree in the last 30 to 40 years, which are becoming increasingly more realistic — some even simulate the smell of a yule tree.

A 1972 Inquirer [article](https://www.newspapers.com/article/the-philadelphia-inquirer/186934861/) about the artificial Christmas trees and Indiana County, once known as the "Christmas Tree capital of the world" at the time.
A 1972 Inquirer article about the artificial Christmas trees and Indiana County, once known as the "Christmas Tree capital of the world" at the time.newspaper.com

Strathmeyer, who is 38, said that “the popularity of the real Christmas tree has kind of plateaued off. It's a generalization, but our generation I think, people don't want to deal with the mess of a tree, and so that deters them from getting a real tree.”

However, Strathmeyer is optimistic. He is currently transitioning one of his wholesale farms to a choose-and-cut farm – where customers visit the farm, select a tree to cut, and take it home. He credits the recent popularity of these on-site experiences to social media. “People want that experience,” said Strathmeyer, “they want to take pictures out on the farm.

“Maybe they'll put up with the mess of a real tree because their kids want to go out to the farm and ride the wagon and run through the field.”

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Bates said Pennsylvania has a thriving choose-and-cut scene and that “a lot of those retail choose-and-cut farms also have other activities, like they may have a corn maze or some kind of agritainment.”

Combined with Pennsylvania’s proximity to major cities along the eastern seaboard, this growing popularity of experience-forward farms suggests the industry will remain viable for the foreseeable future.

It might be too late for you to grow up on a Christmas tree farm like Taylor Swift, but it’s not too late to ride a wagon and run through local Christmas tree fields. Whether you’re going to cut your own, or pick one up from a parking lot, we’ve got you covered with guides on where to go and how to get one delivered.

Methodology

Christmas tree data comes from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Census of Agriculture data, which was most recently conducted in 2022, and accessed via the USDA’s National Agricultural Statistical Service. The data accessed cover farms that produce Christmas trees, including the number of farms, trees harvested, and acres planted.

Staff Contributors

  • Design, Development, and Data: Jasen Lo, Sam Morris
  • Reporting: Jasen Lo
  • Editing and Illustration: Sam Morris
  • Copy Editing: Brian Leighton

Off to the woods for more Christmas stories

tk has Christmas tree farms spanning acres that harvest Christmas trees each year.