Maine is known as the the Pine Tree State, and forest products constitute the state's largest industry, so growing Christmas trees is a "natural" for Maine tree farmers. And what could be easier? You just plant some trees, cut them down when they get big enough, and sell them during the holiday season.
Well, its not quite that simple - if done right. Fewer than a dozen of the Maine Christmas Tree Association's 200 members are full-time tree farmers, an indication of the challenges involved in raising a crop that takes 10 years or more to bring to market.
The business is labor-intensive. The typical 6' to 8' foot Christmas tree is probably between 10 and 12 years old. It has spent three years rooted in a seed bed, two years in a transplant bed, and six or seven years growing in the field. During that time, tree farmers like Jim LaCasce are doing a lot more than just watching their evergreens grow.
At his Finestkind Tree Farms (located on the outskirts of the town of Dover-Foxcroft, and bracketed north and south by the woodland communities of Bowerbank and Garland) trees begin life in the seed orchard next to LaCasce's home. The mature trees in the seed orchard are not particularly impressive; indeed, they seem quite mismatched and mishappen. Each tree, however, has been selected for a desirable quality it possesses: deep blue-green color, vertical branch angle, good needle retention, late budding, durability as a cut tree.
The seeds LaCasce harvests from the seed-orchard cones are dried, preserved, and then used to start seed beds, where seeds are planted as densely as 1 million per acre. After three years, the best seedlings are transferred to transplant beds at a density of close to 100,000 an acre. At 5 years of age, the trees are transplanted once more, again with greater spacing, about 1,340 trees to an acre.

While some tree farmers plant new trees among old as they harvest a stand, LaCasce plants only on renovated ground. After the year's crop is harvested, all the remaining trees are cut, the ground is plowed and harrowed, stumps are removed, lime and fertilizer are added, and the field is replanted with new seedlings.
During their six or seven years in the field, Christmas trees must be butt-pruned by hand to remove lower limbs and to create a "handle." Grass around the trees must be kept mowed, and the stands must be sprayed for pests such as twig aphids and gall midges. The most laborious task, however, is shearing the trees every summer to create the desired shape and density.
Finestkind Tree Farms is a family farm. Duane LaCasce, a trained forester like his father, believes the award-winning quality of Finestkind trees is due primarily to the fact that he and his father do most of the work. "We try to do as much ourselves as we can," says Duane. "We're in the fields all the time, and we're right there to supervise our helpers."

Article From The Boston Globe Magazine of December 24, 1995
Written By: Edgar Allen Beem

Use these tips to keep your Real Tree safe, alive with a fresh scent and providing beauty throughout the holiday season:
Select the freshest-looking Real Tree available. To test for freshness, gently grasp a branch between your thumb and forefinger and pull it toward you. Very few needles should come off in your hand. Shake or bounce the tree on its stump. You should not see an excessive amount of green needles fall to the ground. Some loss of interior brown needles is normal. If not setting up right away, store the tree in water if possible and out of the sun and wind. Make a fresh cut off the bottom of the trunk one half inch from the bottom just before putting in the stand. Keep the tree’s stand full of water at all times, checking the water level daily. The stand you use should hold at least one quart of water for every inch diameter of the trunk after the tree is in the stand. Don’t add anything to the tree’s water. Research has shown that plain tap water is by far the best. Some commercial additives and home concoctions can actually be detrimental to a tree’s moisture retention and increase needle loss. Place the Christmas Tree well away from heat registers, space heaters, fire places, wood stoves, televisions, computer monitors and other heat sources. These will speed up evaporation and moisture loss of the tree.