From: snyder@henry.ece.cmu.edu (John Snyder)
Subject: Re: Christmas tree alternative?
Organization: Physics Department, Carnegie Mellon University
Date: Wed, 18 Nov 1992 20:51:59 GMT

In article <1eb20eINN4oi@cat.cis.Brown.EDU> GE777009@brownvm.brown.edu (Jenna Cole-Steele) writes:
>Get a live tree, balled and bagged, and plant it somewhere.
>That's what our family has done for the years between me
>being born (1966) and 1990. Now, my mother has an artificial
>tree, my father has an artificial tree, and my sister has
>one as well.
>
>i think its a huge waste to cut down trees just to use as
>christmas trees, regardless of the "poor tree" argument,
>how about the " poor earth" argument?
>
>This year, my new husband and i will start a new tradition of
>getting a balled and bagged tree, and donating it to Keep
>Providence Beautiful
>
>Most balled and bagged trees are cheaper than quality cut trees,
>at least if you know where to go.
>
>Good luck.
>
>Jenna Cole-Steele
>Avant Gardens
>Providence, RI 02916


Does anyone know where the bulk of Christman trees come from?  Correct me
if I'm wrong, but I don't believe that they are cut in the wild from
clear-cut virgin forests or anything like that.  (They would be unlikely
to grow in a particularly pleasing shape.)  I think that a large number
(perhaps essentially all?) of them are *FARMED*.  Planted in regular straight 
rows in a field like other crops.  And how do so many of them have that dense, 
conical shape that so many people like?  I believe that they are tended and 
clipped like that.  My family used to get our trees at a place that grew them 
for cut-it-yourself.  Later my uncle grew them on ground at my grandfather's 
farm.  They make a good cash crop for farmers.  (Particularly if you live 
within driving distance of a large city, where they fetch higher prices.)
My brother is considering buying a small farm in the country, and I recommended
that he look into growing Christmas trees, as a small way of helping to
foot the bill.

For those who think using a cut live tree for decoration is somehow unethical, 
I ask the following questions:

1)  Do you wrap your gifts in wrapping paper?  Is that paper used once for
Christmas, then thrown away?  Trees are cut for paper (and *forest* trees,
I believe).
2)  Do you use paper Christmas decorations?  (trees again)
3)  Do you bring your food and gifts home in brown paper bags?  (Those
bags are made from virgin long-fiber pulp, and, I believe can not be
made strong enough from recycled paper.)  Do you reuse and recycle those bags?
4)  Do you worry about the poor wheat plants that died to produce your
Christmas cookies or dough ornaments?
5)  Do you worry about the poor vegetables that died to make your Christmas 
feast?  (celery, herbs, carrots, potatoes, yams, wild mushrooms, etc. etc. ...)
6)  Do you decorate with cut flowers?


I think that the greatest waste regarding Christmas trees is that when people
are finished with them, they end-up in landfills, when they could be used
for so many other purposes.  A nature center near where I live has a chipping
program, where they are turned into mulch.  My family used to use them as
wild bird shelter near bird feeders.  When I was young, we even made a great
roof for a lean-to that we built in the woods.

If you are trying to save forests, there are surely more effective ways to
do it than boycotting Christmas trees (which, it seems to me is only a
little more effective than boycotting broccoli).

John
snyder@henry.ece.cmu.edu

Newsgroups: rec.gardens