Expanding suburbs push Christmas-tree farms north

Suburban sprawl is pushing into the domain of a different type offarm, a trend that threatens a tradition at Christmas.

The endangered species now is the tree farm and the pleasure ofpicking out that one-of-a-kind holiday decoration.

"It's funny," said Darren Smith of Cal and Shan's Christmas TreeFarm outside Woodstock, "everybody's been asking us how long we'll behere."With subdivisions popping up around him, Smith said the demise ofhis tree farm is inevitable.The Illinois Christmas Tree Growers Association has 35 membersnorth of Kankakee. But many are on prime real estate in Kane andMcHenry counties, as well as in DuPage and Cook counties.The average acre on a tree farm holds 1,000 trees, and the averagetree takes eight years to grow to living-room-friendly size. Smith,a tenant farmer who plants 1,000 acres of soybeans and corn, plantedhis 17 acres of evergreens in 1985.Four years ago he opened for business, and he's betting on itlasting long enough to put his children Cal, 11, and Shannon, 10,through college. The trees are along U.S. 14 in Crystal Lake,desirable property in the heart of the fastest-growing county in theChicago area.His landlord sold a 60-acre parcel this year, Smith said.The trend has been for farmers to replace the land they sell todevelopers by buying cheaper farmland farther north, near theWisconsin border. He said that in today's market "it doesn't makeeconomic sense to farm here. This (land) has a different valueplaced on it because of its location."Other farmers are less pessimistic than Smith about the futureof tree farming.Tom and Dorothy Milnamow of Pine-Apple Orchard grow 10 acres oftrees in addition to the apple orchard west of Geneva. They hopethey are protected by Kane County's growth plan, which aims to keepat least 50 percent of land in the county rural for the next 25years. Kane County now is 80 percent rural."We hope not to be paved over totally as DuPage is," said TomMilnamow, who is a member of the county planning commission.Kurt and Jean Straub of Honeybee Acres are on the west side ofElgin, where growth is booming. A subdivision on Bowes Road has beenbuilt across the street from their farm.But though Jean Straub said they moved there seven years agobecause of the open space and miss it, she admitted that the nearbysubdivision is a ready market for trees.Andy Anderson's farm in Kendall County near Plainfield issurrounded by houses."I've got 21 subdivisions around me," he said.Still, Anderson said, he plans to stay."Money is not always the answer," he said. "What would you dowith the damn money?"