Sun to set on yule tradition

The man who runs the only Christmas tree farm in the county is calling it quits nearly 30 years after he began.

[Times photo: Stephen Coddington] From left, Roger Taylor of Homosassa, pulls a freshly cut family Christmas tree at Carr's Tree Farm with the help of his daughter, Tonie Mounce, and her sons Mark Weatherly, 2, and Robert Weatherly, 3. The family has been coming to the farm for the past seven years.

By ALEX LEARY
© St. Petersburg Times,
published December 9, 2001

LECANTO -- A storm of dust formed and the pebbles on the dirt road popped as J.R. Worley edged his pickup toward the field of green.

A sinner in dark shades and a Jimmy Buffet T-shirt had come to saw his way to deliverance.

"We got a fake one at Kmart," Worley said, standing amid rows of sand pines at Carr's Tree Farm, a shiny bow saw in his right hand.

"We pulled it out the other night and it turned us totally off. It just didn't have any personality."

It was a scene that Roy Carr has watched many times since planting the first Christmas trees on his farm off Chestnut Terrace in 1972.

Each December, hundreds of people come to his choose-and-cut farm for a dose of reality -- needles, sap and all -- in an increasingly antiseptic world.

"People begin to depend on you," Carr said Thursday, not long before Worley showed up. "We've had people that bought trees from us for 20 years. Now their kids are buying."

But this is the last year Carr, Citrus County's only Christmas tree farmer, will be in business. At age 60, his body has told him to relax, for once, to enjoy the holiday without wearing a face of exhaustion.

"It's a young man's business," Carr said from his dining room table, his left arm resting on his right shoulder, which was nearly crushed in a tractor accident in 1988. "It bothers me enough that I don't look forward to doing that heavy shearing."

Opening the door to a small garage outside his plain ranch-style home, Carr motions toward a four-wheeler with a racing tag on the back. His son, he said, has been a great help over the years but Roy Jr. has other interests.

A tradition sprouts

Carr is one of many Christmas tree farmers to have left the business in recent years. Not long ago there were 100 farms across the state; today about half those remain, said Michael Songer, president of the Florida Christmas Tree Association.

"We haven't a real big interest like we had several years ago when the citrus business went cold," Songer said.

Most people realized Christmas trees were labor intensive and not very profitable. The trees must be sheared several times a year, sprayed with a green color that traps moisture and the grass around them kept tight.

Huge farms up north have eaten into the market, shipping down hundreds of precut trees for sale in parking lots. And large stores, such as Scotty's and Home Depot, have begun to sell fresh trees as well.

But the greatest pressure is artificial trees. While real and artificial trees were head to head in 1990, artificial trees now grace 20 percent more living rooms. There were 50.5-million fake trees in 2000, compared with 32-million real ones.

Carr has a hard time using "tree" to describe those bought at Kmart. "I've never been tempted by one," he said. "It's just more stuff I would have to store somewhere."

The roots of Roy Carr's interest in trees lead to the farm he grew up on in Harrisonburg, Va., in the Shenandoah Valley. His family raised dairy cows and hunting dogs.

(Today Carr raises English pointers and intends to focus more on that enterprise in his retirement.)

In 1959, Carr enlisted in the Navy and was put on a submarine. "I was the guy who pushed the button that shoots the missiles."

About six years later, he left the military and went to the University of Florida on the GI Bill. He thought about becoming an agricultural engineer but ended up studying chemical engineering.

After graduating, Carr took a job with Florida Power in Crystal River and bought the land his house now sits on.

Wanting to put the land to use, he thought about growing hay. But the financial return was dismal so in 1972, upon suggestion of the county forester, he planted 1,000 seedlings.

It took a few years before he could sell trees but Carr began to think big, that he would make a lot of money.

He soon learned that was not the case. Maintaining the trees required expensive equipment and many back-breaking hours. There was insurance to buy and advertising.

But Carr kept on, largely because of the joy the trees brought him and his wife, Jane. His face brightens as he talks about families trudging into his fields looking for the right tree.

Some would make a day of it, rolling in the grass, laughing, debating the merits of a particular tree. Boys would toss footballs with their fathers.

"For the past 22 years that's been our Christmas tradition, picking a Saturday and piling in the van," said Jim Cossey, 57, of Crystal River. "We'd always go from tree to tree to tree. Every one was perfect in the kids' eyes."

Five years ago Carr and his wife sketched out a plan: They would plant enough trees for Roy to retire by age 62.

They will be all gone this year. He is replacing the sand pine with longleaf pine, used for lumber.

Tools of the trade

As he walked across his field, dressed in a blue T-shirt, jeans and scuffed brown leather boots, a trio of turkey buzzards soared above. The air was cool, the sun darting between puffy white clouds.

It was 12:45 p.m. and Carr needed to get ready for opening. He went inside and retrieved a cash register and set it on a small table.

Next he sprayed the blades of five bow saws with WD-40 -- "People say my saws are real sharp, but it's the WD-40." -- and hung them on nails affixed to a green post.

Carr walked back inside. A few minutes later a blue Camry rolled down the dirt path and his wife got out. "We'll miss the people," Jane Carr, 59, said.

"In a way I'm sad but in a way I'm not. It's a lot of work. You can't even get yourself ready for Christmas."

Carr emerged wearing a blue flannel shirt and a white cowboy hat. The flannel keeps chiggers that hide within the pines from eating him alive; the hat, ringed with sweat, keeps needles from falling down the back of his shirt.

Nearby, Carr's assistant was loading a four-wheeler with supplies. A rail-thin man with long hair, Ron Sears has helped out for the past four years. "It's a damn shame," he said. "But if you don't have anyone to take over, you just gotta let it go."

Making the cut

A red sedan approaches. Carr points the driver toward the trees and watches the car slowly pass the rows. "Everybody wants a big one," he said as the car sped up, moving to a second field.

"We're going to miss him real bad," said the driver, Kim Whitaker, 41, of Homosassa. She was with her children Brandy, 17, and Robert, 10. "That one -- or maybe that one," Robert said, bounding ahead with the saw.

They decide to go back to the first field. Kim Whitaker stands next to a tree. It was the right height but not quite full. She marks it with a twig. "Keep this one in mind," she tells her disinterested daughter.

Finally, they find one. Robert, in shorts, crawls under the tree as his mother snaps pictures with a disposable camera. "It puts off a nice smell in the house," she said, lugging the tree to the trunk of her car.

They drive back to where Carr and Sears are standing. The men, wearing dust masks, stand the tree in a machine that shakes loose the dead needles and, more importantly, the insects living within the branches.

After five minutes, they drag the Whitakers' tree over to a long table and pull the tree through a wide tube strung with netting. No longer in danger of losing their prize, the Whitakers drive away, the music blasting. "Merry Christmas," Carr said.

For $21.20, the Whitakers, it seems, have bought more than a fresh tree.

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