By Sally Pollak Burlington Free Press Staff Writer Thursday, September 23, 2004
WORCESTER -- Isaac and Shadow, a pair of chocolate Labs, lead the way through the fields of Vermont Christmas trees. They pass rows of seedlings poking past the grass; they run by young trees that a stretching 5-year-old could crown with a star; they bound through stands of balsams whose branches are full and soft and deep green.
The dogs wander the gentle hillside planted in trees, then double back to check on their owner, David Jamieson. These walks with his dogs through his trees, some 10,000 of them, are Jamieson's favorite thing to do. Jamieson, a seventh-generation Vermonter who grew up on a dairy farm in Waits- field, said he wouldn't milk cows if you paid him. But he will tend Christmas trees till the cows come home.
"I'll say it a thousand times," Jamieson said, "but it makes me happy being here."
The happiness comes from the beauty of the surroundings; the physical nature of the work; the connection to family past and future (Jamieson's great-nieces, Isabel, 4, and Anna, 2, who are ninth-generation Vermonters, help with the planting).
"My grandfather, who was a commissioner of agriculture, helps me spiritually," Jamieson said. Looking at Hunger Mountain, he thinks of his maternal grandmother, who grew up on the other side of the mountain in Waterbury.
"I'm out working, and I'll say things like, 'Well, grandma, I think it's prettier from this side,'" Jamieson said.
Much of his happiness on the tree farm comes from Jamieson's sense, his hope, that he is growing and nurturing a family tradition. For it is holiday tradition, in particular a child's winter experience, that Jamieson imagines when he looks at his balsams and frasers, a slow-growing but insect-resistant hybrid tree.
"I have a lot of friends under 8," Jamieson said.
Tend to crop
Jamieson, 59, and his wife, Sue, 56, have two grown sons. They moved to Mountain Mead Farm from Waterbury 12 years ago. She is a teacher of shamanism and other nontraditional healing methods. Her studio, The Highland Center for Health and Healing, is located at the farm. He is a construction manager who specializes in concrete repair and restoration. Christmas trees are the perfect crop for this Vermonter with farming in his blood: Trees are not cows; you can mostly let them be. He can work around his construction schedule.
"We're two separate people here," he said. "She's pretty and educated and nice. And I'm a farmer."
He does farmer-y things: Like cutting down his hemlock trees and hauling them on a skidder through his woods. Jamieson used the lumber, which was milled on his property, to build his barn.
He experiments with the kinds of trees he grows with an eye toward different Christmas-tree needs: From smaller trees suitable for condo-dwellers and kids to varieties that he hopes won't require spraying. These trees, which are slower growing, are likely to be resistant to a needle-damaging fly called the gall midge.
"I just have a great concern about the use of chemicals," Jamieson said. One way he addresses this concern is to fertilize his thousands of trees by the cupful, as opposed to mechanical spraying, he said.
When he cleared his land for farming, Jamieson found and followed the original fence lines, clearing to the boundaries that marked a 19th-century hill farm. He thinks also about the future of his land, and said he has contacted a land-trust organization about keeping his property from development.
Feel-good work
Jamieson, one of about 200 Christmas tree growers in the state, won two first-place ribbons for his trees last month at the Champlain Valley Fair.
"I touch every tree every year," Jamieson said.
The work begins May 1, when Jamieson and his family and friends plant 1,500 seedlings. He drills the holes for the plants and his helpers, including young Isabel and Anna, put the trees in place and stamp the dirt around them. By 1 in the afternoon, Jamieson said, all 1,500 seedlings are in the ground.
The seedlings are known as "three-twos," meaning they've been in seed beds for three years and transplant beds for another two. They're about 16 inches tall when Jamieson plants them at his farm. Typically, a tree will grow about a foot a year. In general, trees are on the farm for about seven years before they're cut and sold.
Jamieson does the pruning and shaping of his trees, including coaxing the tree to grow just one "leader," the arrow-like branch that shoots from the top of the tree and holds the crowning ornament.
He sells his trees at Gardener's Supply Co., through a kind of fluke meeting: Jamieson was selling his trees at a farm supply store in South Burlington, when he and a customer got to talking. Jamieson couldn't hide his love for what he does, and the man was drawn to his enthusiasm and concern for quality. The customer turned out to be a manager at Gardener's Supply, who asked if he'd be interested in selling there the following year.
"The way he feels about his trees and the way he comes across to the customer as caring about what he's doing -- that's what we're all about here," said Todd Fisher, retail store supervisor.
Jamieson is at the Intervale store on weekends during the holiday season. He loves the scene: the kids and the cocoa and the sleigh rides through the snow, available on Thanksgiving weekend and Saturdays in December at no cost.
"I even have snowball fights with kids, right inside the store," he said, a warm September sun slanting across his farm and alighting on his trees. "It just makes me happy."
