Arizona silver belt., 1900-12-27
CHRISTMAS TREES
The Joy of the Children s
 Yuletide Party,
MILLIONS ARE USED YEARLY.
Uncle Sam Leads the World in the Use of Christmas Trees, and the State of Maine Supplies
 the Eastern Cities.

the Eastern Cities
 From the New York Herald.
 If one hundred people selected at
 random from all walks of life were asked the question, What in your opinion constitutes the most charac-
 teristic feature of Christmas-the one essential which could not be foregone without destroying the best traditions, the greatest enjoyments of the cele- bration?" it is safe to say that ninety per cent would unhesitatingly answer, "The Christmas tree" And fortunes are made annually in consequences.
 To imagine Christmas without trees is as great stretch of che imagi- nation as to picture city without buildings. An classes, kinds and con ditions of people find common ground in the delights afforded by the fragrant gayly trimmed green boughs. The splendid forest giant, twenty feet high, flashing with electric lights, covered with decorations costing into the hun dreds of dollars and gracing the par Tor of Fifth avenue mansion, affords it's owner no more delight than the humble twO-foot shrub covered with cheap paper dolls, gives to the chil- dren of poverty in the lowly attic of an east side tenement.
 Uncle Sam leads the world in the use of Christmas trees. Statistics compiled from carefully authenticated information show that fully three and half million are required to meet the great American demand.
 Of these six hundred thousand come to Greater New York alone, and to pass along West street is to meet with miniature forests of spruce and pine. The general prosperity has made this a banner year, and dealers are having all they can do to get the necessary supply here. Every year this grows more difficult to supply. Twenty years ago five carloads of trees would have swamped the New York market. To day four hundred loads would not do it.
 As the forests become denuded the shippers have to go farther and farther from the railroad centres to get the kind of trees they want. The cost of transportation, first by wagon and then by railroad, yearly increases. In former days the bulk of the New York supply came from the Catskills, the wego lake, but now the greater part comes from far off Maine.
 The Maine Christmas tree is much more valuable than any other. The farmers of Maine have raised the trees for so many generations that they know all about cutting them down. They have a method by which they catch the tree as it breaks off at the root under the blows of the axe, and when it lands upon the ground it is so that not limb is in jured.
 Though the cutting, trimming, build ing and shipment of Christmas trees is a labOrious task, the Maine farmers who do the work themselves make the holiday, taking their fam flies to the forest fringe and eating their midday meal around a blazing fire that roars and sparkles in the midst of their labOrs. One man cuts the slzable trees close to the ground; a boy or a strong girl cuts away with a sharp hatchet the few dead limbs at the base; a woman and boy, or two put the trees into bundles of twelve and tie them firmly together with strong cords, and large boy or d man drives the team of horses, hitched to a hayrack, which hauls the load to the wharf or the railroad sta tion.
 The price which the farmers receive | for their Christmas trees, though small | for individual trees, amounts to good | sum when the large quantity is taken into consideration. For small trees, five to six feet tall, such trees as would | be used by families in moderate cir five cents is the usual | price. A tree from six to ten feet tall will bring from ten to fifteen cents, to it's symmentry. The five cent trees are sold for twenty-five cents in the city markets, while fiji teen cent tree often brings dollar or more, so the jobbers or retailers make handsome profits on all they can sell. Or course, all the trees left over after Christmas are . dead loss, and those W hich are sold must be disposed of at rates to preclude possibility of run ming behind in the venture.
 A Christmas tree takes five years to grow. The woodman who raises them can count upon going over the same strip of land once every five years. Thi. year he takes his boy of five with | him. Five years from now he takes the boy again, lad who can be help l,&.. |. l... hoo