Holiday tree farms get the ax

When it came time to decide what to do with his family's Christmas tree farm in Monroe Township, Thomas Allen didn't have a lot of options. His grown children had no interest in the business, and Allen couldn't work the land while holding down his full-time job supervising town recreation. The farm in Middlesex County, where Christmas trees have been sold for 40 years, didn't generate enough profit to provide his sole income.

So Allen did what so many farmers in New Jersey before him have done. He sold his land to developers. As farmers like Allen leave the cut-your-own Christmas tree business, they take with them a tradition almost as old as the holiday itself. And in parts of the state, the change in the landscape is becoming noticeable.

"There are some areas where there's been such rapid development that the huge lots are disappearing," said William Hlubik, Middlesex agricultural agent for Rutgers Cooperative Extension. No one knows precisely how many Christmas tree farms have disappeared in New Jersey. The first federal census that included them in 2002 found 1,167 such farms statewide covering 7,628 acres. The results of the next census aren't due until 2009.

But the steep slide in the number of all farms and farmed acreage is well documented. The state has less than half the number of farms it had in 1950, with total acreage sliding from 1.7 million to about 800,000. In Morris County, a development replaced the Christmas trees on the 85-acre Trout Brook Farms in Chester four years ago.

“It’s just another little loss for the agricultural landscape and the farming tradition,” said Frank Pinto, director of the Morris County Preservation Trust. “It also requires one to go further for a tree or to buy one that’s imported from Pennsylvania.” A sizable chunk of the original Simonson Farm in Cranbury also went to a developer in 2002 when brothers Ray and Edward Simonson had different ideas about what to do with the nearly 300 acres they owned jointly. Rodger Jany, grandson of Ray Simonson, now keeps a smaller version of the Christmas tree farm on the portion he owns with his mother and aunt.

“Everybody (in his family) has been appreciative of development and how it helps maintain land value ... however, on the other hand, we also appreciate the open space,” Jany said. Anne Edwards, president of the New Jersey Christmas Tree Growers Association, said her members face the same pressures all farmers are experiencing as they age: a lack of younger family members willing to continue the tradition. In New Jersey, the situation is exacerbated by high land prices and proximity to growing suburbs. The average age of farmers is going up, and we’re just not getting enough young people taking over,” said Edwards, who with her husband owns the Edwards Christmas Tree Farm in Wrightstown.

Some Christmas tree growers liken selling out to developers to selling a member of the family. A number have chosen to instead enter the state farm-preservation program, which pays farmers to never develop their property. Once development restrictions have been written into the deed, farmland becomes less valuable, making it easier for a prospective farmer to enter the business, said Mark Vodak, a Rutgers extension specialist who sits as a non-voting member on the board of the Christmas Tree Growers Association.

That’s how Jeff Sangello, a landscape business owner, said he was able to afford to buy the Anne Ellen Christmas Tree Farm in Manalapan, whose previous owners contemplated selling to a housing developer. On Nov. 13, with money kicked in by the state and Manalapan, Monmouth County bought two agricultural easements on the 104 acres for $1.6 million. “The farm is entering our farmland preservation program just as it begins its busy seasonal time of harvesting evergreen trees,” said Freeholder Deputy Director Lillian Burry. “Because of the efforts by these preservation partners, future generations will be able to choose and cut their own Christmas trees, and 104 acres will remain a positive part of our ecosystem.”

John Perry, co-owner of Yuletide Christmas Tree Farms in Plumsted, said he and his younger brother Alan are trying to get their 24 acres into the Farmland Preservation Program to help keep the farm in the family. At 64, Perry said he doesn’t have decades of farming left in him. There’s a very real chance his heirs wouldn’t be able to afford the inheritance tax on the Ocean County land without farmland preservation, he said.

“The nice part of it is you’re still on it. You can still farm it. It doesn’t turn into a wheat patch,” he said. Despite preservation success stories, Richard Obal, agricultural agent with Rutgers Cooperative Extension in Monmouth County, said he’s seen more Christmas tree growers get out of the business than ones starting up. It’s tough work and an economic hardship tending trees that aren’t harvested for as long as 12 years, he said.

“Is it a growing industry in New Jersey? I would say not,” he said. “It’s all economics. It’s a crop that’s got a shelf life.”

Oh, read the article. It’s about having land that will bring enough to keep you in comfort for the rest of your life, versus working hard to make much less, and your children not wanting that life.

I bought a Christmas tree from a real scruffy farm, “Wayne’s Christmas Trees,” surrounded by developments, run by a stubborn old man who’d had a stroke and was barely getting around, who insisted on sawing it down himself one-handed, and whose tying it on the car left much to be desired (I had to buy clothesline a few miles down the road.) Now he could sell out and buy the finest retirement accomodations, but I think they’ll have to carry him out, and when they do, his sons won’t be running Wayne’s Christmas tree farm or any holiday tree farm.

It’s a beautiful tree. I’ll save the bird’s nest from it, and think of a stubborn old farmer.

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