News Star
Sandy and Bentley Curry advertise their business as Curry’s Christmas Tree Farm in Start, but they’ve transformed the place into more of an agricultural amusement park.
Fragrant Carolina Sapphires, Leyland cypresses and Virginia pines make a Christmas forest, but there’s also a pond where children feed ducks, plastic duck races, a corn maze, a sandbox filled with corn, a pumpkin patch and constant hayrides.
“Agritourism is a way to generate enough cash flow to be a viable business,” Bentley Curry said this week.
But beginning today, the Christmas trees, ranging from just over 4 feet tall to 18 feet tall, are the stars of the farm.
And Curry’s Christmas Tree Farm, as well as others in the region, are preparing for the holiday surge that begins today and will continue until Christmas.
“We’ll be covered up with people (today) who come out to choose their trees,” said Bentley Curry, whose farm is open from 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays and 1-5 p.m. Sundays. “We’ll tag them, and most will come back to cut them and take them home later.”
Don Reed, an LSU AgCenter forestry and wildlife specialist, said many growers are following the Currys’ lead.
“A lot of the growers are doing more than trees,” Reed said, citing pumpkin patches and arts and crafts.
“The most important benefit from choose-and-cut is freshness,” Reed said. “You know it’s going to last well past Christmas.”
The Currys planted their first trees on his father’s former 12-acre cotton farm in 1981 and sold their first trees in 1983.
Sandy Curry said she’s seen families come back year after year.
“It’s a family thing,” she said. “Choosing and cutting a tree is a way to start and continue a family tradition.”
Reed and Dora Ann Hatch, an LSU AgCenter community rural development agent, recently met with 70 Christmas tree farmers from Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama at the annual meeting of the Southern Christmas Tree Association in Pitkin.
Hatch said people are motivated to buy real trees because of tradition, memories and “going green.” She explained when consumers go green they recycle the trees for sand and soil erosion barriers and for fish shelters in ponds.
Artificial trees, on the other hand, are petroleum-based products that consume vast resources during fabrication and are not biodegradable, Reed said.
Most trees on farms cost about $10 per foot.
The Currys and some other farms even offer imported pre-cut northern firs to satisfy more customers.
“For years I refused to bring in cut trees, but we’re in business, and some people, especially who’ve moved here from the north, want the firs, and we can’t grow them in this climate,” Bentley Curry said. “If you’re in business, you accommodate as many customers as you can.”
And Curry said he couldn’t think of a business where the customers are almost always happy.
“There are a lot of smiles every year,” he said.
