A Second Career in Christmas Trees

Czarnecki tried several varieties of evergreens, including Scotch pine and Frazier fir, the latter a dense, dark green and tender-needled conifer -- "the one tree I never had any luck with." With their soft needles and heavy growth, white pines became the big seller.

White-pine needles were also a favorite food of deer, so he kept a couple of part-collies on the property to chase the marauders, which increased as more of the eastern county became developed and the deer moved west.

Careful trimming is the key to selling a tree, Czarnecki said. "Evergreens should be sheared in the summer, when their growth is slowest." The trimming begins when the trees are about 3 feet high and four years old.

"You cut branches that are sticking out so the tree becomes a nice triangle. When the tree is five or six feet high, it might grow 6 to 12 inches a year. So you cut part of the new growth that tends to pull the branch down and create a space above the branch," he said.

Oaksworth was open four days a year for tree sales, usually the first two weekends in December. "We usually sold about 1,000 trees, and the average price was $20," which included cutting and binding the tree aboard a vehicle. "People would stay for hours. If it was a nice day, they'd spread a blanket and have a picnic or throw a football or Frisbee. I found out it took an average of four hours for people to agree to buy one tree."

Seven-foot trees were the favorite height, but "by the end of the '90s, when the McMansions started going up, people started looking for 12- to 15-foot trees," he said. "We sold them for $100. They carted them away in horse vans."

Large trees that didn't sell were cut to leave a seven-foot top. The bottom half was cut up for firewood, and the greenery was sold for wreaths.

When Czarnecki saw that some families were holding hands, dancing around a tree and singing songs before they bought it, he asked them why. "They were Scandinavians or Germans -- 'Just like we used to do in the old country,' " he recalled them saying.

Oaksworth kept records on who came and what kind of trees they bought. A repeat customer received a free evergreen every fifth year. "We advertised for a few years, but afterwards people just came coming back," Czarnecki told me.

In the early spring, beside the stumps of the downed trees, Czarnecki planted one- or two-year-old fertilized shoots, previously kept in pots. The stump-and-root system of the cut trees decayed quickly and fed nutrients to the new trees.

Loudoun now has 19 Christmas tree farms, but Oaksworth is no longer among them. Czarnecki retired from farming in spring 2005 and sold the property. He told me that the quarter-century he spent there had been one of "hard work, learning something new every week, and outliving most of my friends."

Eugene Scheel is a historian and mapmaker in Waterford.