By KEVIN WALKER
Michigan Correspondent
 
GRASS LAKE TOWNSHIP, Mich. — John L. Arend, one of the founders of Arend Tree Farms, a 35-year-old Christmas tree business in southeastern lower Michigan, died late last month. The former U.S. Forest Service scientist, World War II veteran and businessman was 95.

“He ended up having almost two careers,” said Lee Arend, John’s son. “He was active in the business until a couple of years ago.”
Lee said Arend’s research at the Forest Service went hand in hand with his eventual involvement in the Christmas tree business. According to Lee, in 1939 his father was growing a few trees in his father’s backyard in Saline. This early venture evolved into a full-fledged business in the 1970s, once John retired from the Forest Service and Lee put his efforts into establishing and expanding the Christmas tree farm.

Lee said the business has its roots in the 1950s, when people in the western part of the state were having problems with sand blowing across the road. Arend went around with Grand Rapids native and future U.S. President Gerald Ford to look at the problem. One of the solutions, they decided, was to import Scotch Pines into the state from England because it would grow in sandy soil.

The Arend business arose out of these early experiments. Now Arend Tree Farms has hundreds of acres, with locations in Grass Lake Township and Brooklyn. “There weren’t that many plantation Christmas trees when they started out in the early 1950s,” Lee said. “People got to see Scotch Pines as a reasonable tree for Christmas.”

Since then the business has taken another turn, with more fir trees being grown and used as Christmas trees, Lee added. Yet, Scotch Pine is still popular for the holiday.

Before and during some of these events, John had a career as a Forest Service researcher over a 30-year period. For most of that time he was stationed in East Lansing at a research station that was part of the North Central Forest Service regional office in St. Paul, Minn.

During his career, Arend, a graduate of the University of Michigan who also did graduate work at forestry schools abroad, wrote numerous articles on forest and tree subjects. He came out of a time when it was acceptable to use forests in a responsible manner and make a profit off of the land. In one article he authored with Harold Scholz, Oak Forests of the Lake States and their Management, Arend wrote a section called Managing Oak Land For Maximum Returns.

“Forest land is not always owned or acquired solely for timber production. Some people have forest land for outdoor recreation, pride of ownership or for investment purposes. Although much of the oak in the northern Lakes States is publicly owned, most of the oak in the southern portion ... is privately owned. Whatever the owner’s objectives, he might still like to know what the potential revenues from managing and harvesting this timber would be.”
In contrast to this, a recent chief of the Forest Service has written that the purpose of the agency, first and foremost, is to maintain biodiversity in U.S. forestland.

“Up until the (19)70s, foresters took a great deal of pride in their knowledge of how to grow trees, and more trees,” said Cheryl Oakes, a librarian at the Forest History Society.

In addition to his career at the Forest Service and his work at Arend Tree Farms, Arend leaves behind four children, all of whom graduated from Michigan State University, as well as 10 grandchildren and nine great-grandchildren.

For more information on Arend Tree Farms and the Arend family, go to www.arendtreefarms.com