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rooms last year, Christinas tree growers must plant new seedlings each spring.
500 Pines
McWhirt bought 500 white pine seedlings from the state this year. It’s less expensive to buy them this way, he says; he paid $25 for the 500. Some of them he gave away to neighbors. Others he will plant in rows on a hill for sale several years from now.
McWhirt has a total of approximately 1,500 trees on his 38 acres. He planted them all by hand. He’s been planting them for 10-12 years, he says, selling them for about five years.
Last Christmas McWhirt sold nearly 400 trees, making him one of the county’s major choose-and-cut suppliers. It’s only been the past couple of years that he has reached such heights, however. McWhirt says he was previously selling 150200 trees a year. Although he belongs to the state Christmas tree growers’ association, McWhirt calls himself a “rank amateur.” He never attends association meetings but reads the books. “I hit or miss, I guess,” he says.
Yet McWhirt says he has developed steady customers. Some of them have been coming back every year for
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