’Tis the Season

’Tis the Season

CAMPUS

GREEN ON GREEN

HERE’S HOW A CHRISTMAS TREE FINDS ITS WAY TO CAMPUS EACH YEAR.

The tree arrives the Monday after Thanksgiving.

Campus arborist Brian Beaty starts the process in July. He works with D’Aiello’s Tree Farm in Canaan, Vermont, which has supplied the tree for more than a decade. In earlier years the College used donated trees. “That was a hassle because we had to pick them up and get road permits,” says Beaty.

Sometimes Beaty simply selects from photos. “They know what I want,” he says. If he’s unsatisfied with the snapshots, he goes to the tree farm to make a decision.

•-> The chosen one— almost always a balsam fir—typically stands 40 to 50 feet tall.

•->• The tree and delivery cost $4,500.

•->Three workers insert the tree into a five-foot hole while it is suspended from a crane. “You could damage it quite easily,” says Beaty. One year the top snapped off, and a new tree had to be found. The team stabilizes it with steel cables attached to ground spikes hidden by the foliage.

•-> Two workers trim the tree during a five-day period. In past years they’ve wrapped 750 feet of lights around the tree using a 65-foot lift. This year they’re stringing lights vertically, which might save time, according to electrician John Biele.

►>• The tree is decorated with energy-efficient green, red, amber, and white LED lights.

•->• Shortly after New Year’s Day, Beaty’s team cuts down the tree, feeds it through a chipper, and turns the remains into mulch for use around campus. The stump remains in the frozen earth until a thaw occurs.

This year’s lighting ceremony, complete with cookies and hot chocolate for spectators, takes place December 6.

RANKING

12

Dartmouth’s place on The Wall Street Journal’s 2020 list of top colleges

QUOTE/UNQUOTE

"To be one of the few football players in history to play a football game there is a huge deal. I will be able to tell my kids and my grandkids about the game in Yankee Stadium.”

-Football captain Isiah Swann ’20 on the November 9 game against Princeton