For people seeking to harvest their own Christmas tree in southern New Hampshire, their options are fewer now, even in early December, than just a few years ago.

“Overall, as a business, it is not sustainable as a for-profit industry,” said Jeff Brown of Hilltop Farm in Hancock. 

This is the second year in a row that Brown has not opened his grounds to individuals and families in search of a tree that wasn’t cut before Thanksgiving and brought to the region by truck. 

“It’s a lot of work running all this,” Brown said on a recent Sunday.

Such a day right after Thanksgiving has previously seen hot cocoa and popcorn served inside a shed that Brown built by hand. A fire circle outside the space let patrons warm up after hayrides that were offered on paths flanked with trees ready to be cut. 

Things are quiet this year, and Hilltop’s website notes that the farm is “Temporarily Closed.”

The effort required for this business model is going up against a perpetual challenge to all farmers that has become more formidable in recent years. 

“Fifteen years ago, we didn’t have some of this weird weather,” said Nate Wheeler at Miracle Acres just over the Wilton line in Milford.

On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, Wheeler pointed to a field down across from the cocoa and popcorn hut. Hundreds of pink ribbons fluttered from what looked like plants set in the ground recently.

“We planted 3,000 trees in April,” said David Wheeler, Nate’s father. “Five to six hundred died due to a lack of water.” 

It takes about 10 years for trees to get to a height that they’re commonly sought, he added. 

“We had eight weeks this summer with no rain,” David Wheeler recalled, adding that a drought in 2016 impacted trees that should have been healthier now.

“Irrigation helps,” Nate Wheeler said, pointing to a field behind the warming hut with more trees available for cutting. “In that area, we lost only 5% of our plantings thanks to irrigation.”

Figures statewide and nationally reflect the challenges Brown and the Wheelers mentioned. 

According a U.S. Department of Agriculture census, 2017 saw 15,094,678 cultivated Christmas trees cut across the United States. By 2022, that total had dropped to 14,548,694. 

For the same years, the slide was even greater in New Hampshire. Seven years ago, 108,703 trees were cut in the state, but in 2022 that figure was down to 79,323. 

Mirroring Nate Wheeler’s point, the USDA census data for 2022 has a column that doesn’t appear five years earlier – number of irrigated acres of cultivated trees. 

The total number of acres on which Christmas trees are being grown over all dropped by 3,112 over the span of years reviewed.

Demand for trees that people can cut themselves, however, remains high. Miracle Acres is a family business. Nate’s daughter Adelaide, 11, was serving up cocoa, Ellie, who is 14, was seeing to matters by the fire circle and 13-year-old son Cadon was feeding cut trees into the baler. Netting covered them as he pulled them out through the other end.

“We sold 300 trees yesterday,” Nate Wheeler said of the day after Thanksgiving.

“We’ll sell out today and be done,” said David Wheeler.