There is an increase in business at cut-your-own tree farms in recent years, according to Mark Brown of Brown’s Tree Farm on the Schroon River Road in Warrensburg. Brown speculates that it is part of a movement towards recreating simpler times, and tromping through the rows of evergreens, selecting and cutting your own tree, is a back-to-nature family activity.
Tree farming has been a family activity for the Browns since Art Brown first planted rows of Scotch pines on their property in 1951. Arthur Brown, Mark’s father, owned Brown’s Shoe Store in Warrensburg; the tree farm was a side business that required early morning hours to maintain the rows of growing evergreens.
“I don’t know how he did it,” Brown says of his father, “it’s a lot of work… I think he found it relaxing, trimming the trees. Some people play golf.”
In 2007 Art Brown retired from the shoe business, closing the store that provided footwear and shoe repair services in Warrensburg since 1948, explaining, in an interview with the Glens Falls Post Star that, at the age of 90, it was time to move on to new things. He passed away this spring, leaving Mark to continue operations at the tree farm.
During the 50s, Scotch pines reigned supreme as the favored Christmas tree variety. Spruces were popular during the 60s and 70s. Today’s Christmas tree shoppers seek balsam firs and Canaan firs, a variety of balsam fir from West Virginia, although Mark Brown admits he never knows what people are going to select when it comes to their perfect Christmas tree. He has had customers seek out sparse white pines, the variety featured in “A Charlie Brown Christmas.”
“I never thought of a white pine as a Christmas tree,” Brown says, “but it’s what they want.”
Tree farming is defiantly not a get-rich-quick scheme. It takes six to eight years for a seedling to reach Christmas tree size. Brown plants one to three thousand seedlings in the spring, and hopes for a 70 to 80 percent success rate. As with any enterprise in agriculture, the weather is a major factor in that success. In past years, the farm has suffered floods, and this summer’s drought did some damage to the crop as well. Deer have also interfered with operations, nearly wiping out the rows of Frazier firs on the farm.
Brown’s is two miles from the intersection of State Route 9 and Horicon Avenue in Warrensburg. You will find the farm on your left as you travel north along the Schroon River Road. Look for the rows of Christmas trees and the red barn. Contact Brown’s at (518)623-4941.