A Christmas tree journey

A Christmas tree journey

A tree with character makes owner $74!

By John C. Page
March 1984

TODAY, I’d like to tell you a story. On the surface it may seem a little odd, but only because it is. It is a true story, more or less; more in the essentials, less in the details.

Strange things happen in Pownal, Vermont, especially in that area known as North Pownal. There, one day last August, Priscilla Palmer happened to be looking at a Christmas tree plantation that belonged to Robert Rudd.

Just why she happened to be looking for a tree in August might seem a bit odd to people who are unaware that Rudd shows the plantation to everybody who comes near or far from him.

In this plantation she spotted a balsam fir Christmas tree, which Rudd had been shearing, shaping, and protecting for about eight years. She announced that it was going to be hers next Christmas. Rudd gulped! He had other plans for it, as he too had spotted character and good breeding in this particular tree.

Rudd told her he had plans to send that one to the Vermont Farm Show in Barre. His object was to see if he could pick the one tree out of his hundreds that would also impress the judges. If he got an “excellent” on it, it would fetch $7. Big deal, he thought. He was getting $14 cash-and-carry for his trees at roadside. Dreams of greenbacks beat back dreams of ribbons and he tagged the tree for Priscilla.

Throughout September, October, and especially November, he had dreams of blue ribbons flying away while he stood there with $14 in his hand.

One sleepless night in early December the solution came to Rudd. He told Priscilla she could use the tree for $14, and that if she took good care of it, kept it watered, removed it from the heat soon after the holidays, and didn’t otherwise mangle or macerate it, he would take it to the Farm Show and if he got an excellent on it he’d give her the $7 he won. At least this stopped his nightmares.

The beautiful tree was the focus of the Christmas spirit at Palmers, but Priscilla noticed that Rudd kept stopping by on some pretext or another to see how his tree was standing up.

Once the decorations were removed, the tinsel picked clean, Rudd, the great Indian Giver of the Hoosick River Basin, picked up the tree and kept it indoors in a cool place and well watered throughout the first three weeks ofJanuary.

He then bundled it up firmly in a new netting and brought it up to Bennington. There, Jim Nelson from Hoosick Falls, N.Y., who shows his Yankee Wood Saw in Barre, threw it into the back of his pickup, and headed for Barre.

Rudd had wrapped his precious bundle in plastic, but before it got to Barre, the wind had whipped it bare of the wrapping. But she was a good tough tree, and Nelson said it looked fair to middling when he dragged it into the Barre Auditorium for the Farm Show.

Rudd couldn’t get to the Farm Show, due to the press of business or something, so he called everybody who did go to find out how his tree did. Nobody in these parts even saw his tree up there. Even a good tree looks kind of ordinary when you line it up with a lot of other good trees. No news was bad news in North Pownal for days on end. All hope was lost.

Then one day last week the Pony Express brought a package from Everett Willard, who directs the Farm Show. In it was $7 for winning an excellent on the tree. Also there was. a check for $10 because it was the best in its class. Also there was a check for $50 for the best in show, and a plaque to prove it.

Now, the way I figure it, Rudd got $67 from the Farm Show, and $14 from Priscilla. When and if he gives her back the $7 he promised, he’ll still have $74 for showing the best Christmas tree in Vermont. Can you imagine him giving back only $7 to Priscilla who did, in the final analysis, make a real Christmas tree out of it?

Almost at once, Rudd went to work at the computer. Some quick work showed that 900 saleable trees per acres, at $74 each, on 10 acres amounts to $666,000. When Rudd started driving around in a big new BMW a couple of months ago, we speculated he anticipated a good Christmas tree season, but nothing with figures in this ballpark.

Anyhow, there was a Christmas tree with character. Maybe if Priscilla can pick another winner next August, Rudd will give her back all the $14 she pays, but only maybe. I think there is a rule against showing the same tree two years in a row. Congratulations to Robert Rudd, winner of the big timber in Vermont Christmas trees for 1984.

Jim White, our county forester, says Rudd hasn’t spoken to him since the plaque arrived, and so he asked me to send Rudd his congratulations too. ■