Meet the Modern Farmer: The Wyckoff Family

Wyckoff’s Christmas Tree Farm Belvidere, New Jersey

John Wyckoff doesn’t usually deliver. But he made an exception three years ago: On Thanksgiving Day, Wyckoff and his family drove more than 200 miles to present Michelle Obama with an 18-foot-tall Douglas fir for the White House’s Blue Room. “I take Christmas trees very seriously,” he says.

It’s something the seventh-generation farmer was born to do. His ancestors grew vegetables and raised dairy cows on these fields beginning in 1839, and his father, also named John, planted the first 1,000 evergreen seedlings nearly 120 years later. “I consider it a responsibility to keep this going for the next generation,” says the 50-year-old, whose teenage son, Johnny, helps out regularly.

Today, the family manages roughly 65,000 fir, spruce, and pine trees, and sells about 6,000 annually, often to the same loyal clients who visit each winter to cut down their own tree. “We have people who have been coming here for decades,” says Wyckoff. “There’s nothing better than when someone pulls in, shouting ‘28th year!’ out the window.