State

North Carolina's forests provide a reservoir of Christmas greenery for millions of Americans. Balsams from the Roan, holly from the Sandhills, Galax from (lie Blue Ridge, yaupon from the coast. By PAUL PLEASANTS The prettiest decorations in the world arc with us the year around. From the mountains come fragrant firs, spruce, balsams, pines, and a long list of decorative leaves to make in¬ door and outdoor greenery. In the Sandhills, the business of shipping pines, cones, holly and other ever¬ greens has grown surprisingly in the past few years. The new Clarendon Gardens at Pinehurst have the largest collection of holly trees in the south. The coast has cedar, holly, mistle¬ toe, and. of course, the glamorous yaupon. Specially boxed Christmas greens are available from Orton Plantation, address Winnabow. N. C. Roan Harvest Many shoppers are looking this year for a tree from the famous bal¬ sam forest atop Roan Mountain. Some 20,000 Fraser balsam fir and red spruce Christmas trees were auc¬ tioned off by the Forest Service on October 27 from the extensive stand on Roan Mountain. Almost 50 whole¬ sale and retail tree dealers, with a crowd of spectators, attended the event. Trees were carefully selected by forest service personnel and marked with yellow paint spots. Cutting was planned to increase the health of the forest and not to injure or disfigure it. The service says that with scien¬ tific harvesting a perpetual crop of Christmas trees can be had from the Roan. Ranger George Vitas said that prospects for the forest were good this year — there was super-abundance of seed from the balsams. Galax King Did you sec, last summer, people moving over the hillsides, poking greenery into a sack tied around their middle? They probably were "gal- lackers." and much of the work they were doing will come to light at Christmas. “Gallacking" is the gathering of ga- lax leaves and other greenery in de¬ mand by florists and decorators, especially at Christmas time. The gathering of this natural forest product is an onerous job. but it is a welcome one in the Appalachians, be¬ cause, for thousands of mountain people it provides a uniquely conven¬ ient job, to be done in spare time, and it also is a source of ready cash. Galax grows widely in our moun¬ tains, but the gallacking capital of the South undoubtedly is Low Gap, North Carolina, a little village near the Vir¬ ginia line on NC 89. T. N. Woodruff started the thing in 1907 when he visited a florist friend in New York and took him a few bunches of galax leaves as a gift. Rec¬ ognizing their merits in his business, the florist immediately placed orders for all Woodruff would supply. The little business grew to envelop not only galax. but other greenery, such as bal¬ sam "sprays,'* oak leaves, laurel (ivy), boxwood clippings, lycopo¬ dium. It is shipped all over the world, it is used in scores of decorative items. There is hardly a town in America with a population of 10,000 which has not done business with Woodruff. Hun¬ dreds of miles of "Christmas rope" and wreaths arc made and shipped each year for use as street decorations. The galax king also invented methods of "fixing" his greenery to make it last longer, and also dyeing those which tend to fade too quickly. There is a steady call for raw. or natu¬ ral, greens, and these arc stored in refrigeration to meet a ycar-around demand. "I'd druthcr," said a picker, "gal- lack than evergreen. Gallacking is slavish work, but its plumb healthful " He was cvcrgrecning at the time, twist¬ ing sprays into a decorative rope. Gal¬ lacking is healthful, if you have a stout back and strong limbs. It means everlasting bending over the ground and pulling the waxy leaves and stuff¬ ing them into a bag, trailing behind like the sack of a cotton-picker. At night, the whole family sorts out the leaves and tics them into "hands" of 25 leaves each. A good gallackcr can pick 10,000 leaves in a day. and earn around $7 to $10; a family of ener¬ getic pickers can appreciably increase the community income. While mountain people harvest all sorts of greenery, they usually special¬ ize in one type. A few of them com¬ bine gallacking with yarbing. which is the harvesting of roots, barks, and leaves for the crude drug industry. Gallacking, which term nowadays usually embraces the collection of any decorative evergreen, is widespread in western North Carolina. Woodruff has trucks to pick up the harvest at dis¬ tant points and there are various sub¬ agents who buy direct, resell to him. He also has competition — there are KEEPING THE GREEN IN CHRISTMAS e THE STATE. NovCMoeR 28. 1953