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The New York State Fair
"You Know it's Fresh, when you cut it yourself!"
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The History of
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Alexander's
Tree Farm |
by Frank W. Alexander II |
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"In 1958 three young
men and myself from Buffalo, NY decided we could "get rich" growing
and selling Christmas trees. So we bought 151 acres of land for $3000, a
second-hand tractor and planter, and went to work. Over 3 years, 90,000 trees
were planted. By the time they were big enough to sell, there was a national
glut on the market. After several years of selling just enough trees to pay for
pruning and other expenses, we gave up and let the trees "go back to
nature".
But I still
liked the idea of Christmas trees. In 1969 I was living in Dansville and began
planting some trees on property my wife and I had bought from her father. We
sold our first trees in 1979. The farm has now expanded to over 90 acres, with
over 35 of them planted with trees.
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For a few years people paid for
their trees at our kitchen table. Then we bought a cash register and set it up
in the barn's doorway. And we needed to use up our extra Scotch pine trees so
wreath making began then too. The next year we moved the tools out of the
woodshop and put the cash register there. We decided that we might as well try
to sell a few ornaments too. Prices started at $.19. A small Christmas village
from our home had been expanding so it was moved to the shop.
In 2004, we
had outgrown the woodshop and we built a 50' by 80' barn for a gift shop and
tree processing area. The cement floor and roof were contracted out but all the
other construction was done by us, primarily by Frank III, that's him up there on the girders. So that's where we
are.
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