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Published December 16, 2006 10:30 pm - I was probably only 6 or 7 years old when I went on my first hunting trip back in the 1950s. Larry Dablemont: Cedars are true Christmas trees of Ozarks By Larry Dablemont
Globe columnist I was probably only 6 or 7 years old when I went on my first hunting trip back in the 1950s. I carried the axe. Dad took me with him on a search for a Christmas tree not far from our home in Texas County. A Christmas tree at our home was a cedar tree, and not just any cedar tree. It had to be just the right height, the right girth and the right color. You didn’t find a Christmas tree just anywhere, you had to hunt for it. So in addition to the little belt axe, Dad always took his ’97 Winchester pump-gun and while we hunted the perfect Christmas tree we also hunted for rabbits and squirrels and quail and ducks, none of which had to be perfect, just within range. There is nothing more typical of the Ozarks where I grew up than the old fields of broam sedge, blackberry brambles and sumac thickets, dotted with cedars, most of them too large or too small for Christmas trees. We always found rabbits while we were looking for a Christmas tree. We usually found a squirrel or two and a covey of quail. On farm ponds hidden deep within those overgrown fields, there were occasional wild mallards as well. As years went on, we continued that tradition and I’d tag along carrying the axe and the game, whatever it turned out to be, and noticing that where there were cedars there was always an abundance of winter wildlife. After three or four hours, we’d usually find that just-right cedar not far from the pickup after all. In the Ozarks, most country people value the cedar as a Christmas tree. But cedars have value far beyond dollars and cents. Actually the tree we call a red cedar, named “Baton Rouge” meaning “red stick” by the first French explorers in the Midwest, is not a cedar at all, it is a juniper. It can grow 50 feet tall and two feet in diameter when the soil is good, or it can sprout from the thinnest soil in a limestone glade and survive forever with the flimsiest foothold. The red cedar was once a tree of considerable economic value. One old-timer in Arkansas told me of an era before the great depression when the Buffalo and White rivers were filled with floating cedar logs, miles of them on their way to become pencils and cedar chests. The oil in the cedar is a natural insect repellent of course. The fragrance of it drives away moths, therefore, explaining the popularity of cedar chests. But that heavy oil also is a natural wood preservative, and cedar posts are known to be long lasting and slow to decay. 
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