By Tricia Pursell
Residents of Indiana County in Pennsylvania like to call it the “Christmas Tree Capital of the World,” but they know better.
“That’s not even close to being accurate anymore,” said Laura Carino, owner of Carino Nurseries in Indiana.
“There are not as many growers as there used to be,” admitted Gregg Van Horn, president of the Indiana County Christmas Tree Growers Association, “but we’re still growing Christmas trees here in Indiana County.”
Availability of land and favorable growing conditions originally added to the success of the Christmas tree farm sales venture begun by several Indiana County residents in 1918. Conditions were particularly conducive to growing Scotch pine, which was popular until the 1980s, when the more popular Douglas, Concolor and Fraser fir trees entered the scene.
“They struggle to raise Douglas fir out there, because of the frost problems,” said Richard McClellan, of McClellan Tree Farm, Middleburg, which recently was chosen to supply two Fraser fir trees for the home of Vice President Joe Biden.
Douglas and Fraser fir trees grow better where they are high and dry, he added, where they are out of the frost pocket and the clay areas. The trees don’t like “wet feet,” he said, where the water pools and stands. They need plenty of rainfall, but also need to be well-drained.
“I think Snyder County has the right type of soil to raise conifers,” McClellan added.
However, Van Horn argued, “In Indiana County, they seem to grow every kind of tree that there is.”
While several farms in Indiana County have supplied Christmas trees to the governor’s home and the Capitol rotunda in Harrisburg, no one ever got as far as taking one to the White House, Van Horn said.
Such an accomplishment no doubt has to be intentional, said Carino, whose Indiana County farm consists of 1,000 acres. “It’s not as easy as going out on your farm and cutting down a tree,” she said. “You are grooming certain trees, watching them from when they were real small and marking them as potential show trees.”
Richard and Mary McClellan earned the honor of supplying this year’s Christmas tree to the vice president’s family after being a finalist at the Pennsylvania Farm Show, and then receiving the 2009 Reserve Grand Champion award at the National Christmas Tree Grower’s convention in Chattanooga, Tenn.
Honored guests at a reception earlier this month, the McClellans had an opportunity to mingle with Biden and his wife, Jill, and had their picture taken in front of the now decorated 11-foot-tall Fraser fir.
“It’s been a good experience for all of us,” Richard said.
The tree has received national media attention lately, including in The Washington Post and the CBS Morning Show.
Another of the McClellan’s trees, a more narrow, 11-foot pine, sits in another room in the Biden’s home, Richard said.
The tree is the second from a Snyder County farm to go to a presidential family.
In 2001, an 18 ½-foot Concolor fir from Hill View Tree Farm, in Middleburg, was presented to first lady Laura Bush for the Blue Room, and a Douglas fir for the first family’s private quarters in the White House.
