TOP TREE: Do you know the number one selling tree for
Christmas?

If you guessed the Scotch pine, you’re right!

Our friends at the Bureau of Forestry, Elk State Forest,
selected the Scotch pine as its “tree of the month,” even though it
is not even native to Pennsylvania.

The Scotch pine tree grows to 60-90 feet tall and is found
throughout Pennsylvania on a variety of soil types. The twisted
needles are in clusters of two and approximately 1 1/2 to 3 inches
long. The fruit is found in the cone which is 1 1/2 inches long
with scales that are sharp. The bark on the upper part of the
trunks has a bright orange color.

The Scotch pine represents about 40 percent of the Christmas
tree market. This tree was brought from Europe for forest and
Christmas tree plantings.

The bureau asks, where did the Christmas tree tradition come
from and what was the first Christmas tree?

One theory is that the first Christmas tree was an inverted fir
tree which represented the Holy Trinity.  As Christianity spread so
did the tradition of a Christmas tree, although the tree now stands
upright. It is believed that Germany is the country where the
tradition of the Christmas tree took a foothold and spread.

BAD NEWS?: Judith dePonceau writes about our glowing report on
the popcorn served at the local theater: “Sorry to burst your
popcorn bubble, but if the theater popcorn is made with partially
hydrogenated vegetable oil, no matter which ‘healthful’ oil is
used, the popcorn is BAD for the arteries. Hydrogenated oil is good
natural oil that has been made into something artificial, and it is
worse than saturated fat for our bodies, she writes.

HOW MANY?: Lester Watson tells us it takes 40-50 gallons of
maple sap to make a gallon of syrup, depending on how sweet you
want it. That’s for 12-pound standard weight of a gallon of syrup.
Why did he phone with this report? One of our readers had
inquired.