Winter Notes
By Jill Armstrong
Strolling through grassy fields, our eyes shielded from the bright sun overhead, my boyfriend, Matt, and I inspected rows of evergreen trees for the perfect one to bring home for the holidays.
Unusual for this time of year, the weather last Saturday as we explored The Rocks Christmas tree farm in Bethlehem felt more like the T-shirt weather of spring than the gloomy gray days of the late November chill.
At The Rocks — a 1,400-acre forest reservation, owned and managed by the Society for the Protection of New Hampshire Forests — customers can cut their own Christmas trees. Originally owned by the Glessner family, the property was donated in 1978 with the condition that there always be a crop of some description in the field.
Upon arriving, I spoke with Nigel Manley — longtime property manager at The Rocks — as he directed cars into the lot on Saturday. When Manley came to Bethlehem 35 years ago, he began milking cows, but when that farmer left and took the herd away, the Forest Society decided to start a cut-your-own tree farm.
“For a conservation group I think it’s good because when we started, cut-your-own Christmas trees and maybe pick-your-own strawberries were really the only things that were direct to the public on farms. And as a conservation group we really wanted to get people on the land so they could learn about us,” Manley said.
There are about 30,000 trees in the ground at The Rocks, and they can harvest anywhere from 4,000 to 6,000 trees sustainably each year. Farmers will replant the same amount to keep numbers up. Once the seedlings are planted, they are tended for the next six to nine years before they are ready to cut.
