This is the VOA SpecialEnglish Agriculture Report.
Many Americans are busy preparing for Christmas and the winterholiday season. Buying a Christmas tree is a holiday tradition formany Americans. One study found that almost eighty percent ofAmerican homes had a Christmas tree last year.
Christmas trees come in all shapes and sizes. Perhaps the mostfamous is the huge Christmas tree near the White House inWashington, D-C.
The National Christmas TreeAssociation represents Christmas tree growers in the United States.It reports that almost forty percent of all Christmas trees inAmerican homes are natural. The other sixty percent are artificial,or man-made, trees.
Many people believe that Christmas trees come from forests. Infact, most trees are carefully grown on farms. Farmers plant andharvest Christmas trees as a crop, similar to fruits or vegetables.
There are about fifteen-thousand Christmas tree farms in NorthAmerica. There are Christmas tree farms in all fifty states andCanada. Currently, about four-hundred-thousand hectares of farmlandis in production. The industry employs more thanone-hundred-thousand people.
About thirty-three-million natural Christmas trees are sold inNorth America each year. It can take as many as fifteen years togrow a tree to a height of two meters. However, the average growingtime is seven years.
Traditionally, farmers growevergreen trees for Christmas trees. Scotch pine, white pine andDouglas fir are among the most popular. Evergreen trees producecones. Most coniferous trees have both male and female cones. Thefemale cones are called seed cones. They hold the seeds created byfertilization.
Farmers remove fertilized seeds from the seed cones and plantthem. They grow into seedlings. Farmers care for the young treesuntil they are about three to five years old. Then farmers replantthem in fields.
Farmers add fertilizer to the trees and remove unwanted plants.They cut the tops of the trees to control how fast the trees grow.Farmers cut other parts of the trees while they are growing. Thisgives the trees the traditional shape that people will like.
For every Christmas tree that a farmer cuts down, he plants twoor three seedlings in its place. This year, farmers planted morethan seventy-three-million tree seedlings.
This VOA Special English Agriculture Report was written by GeorgeGrow.