MAGNOLIA, Ohio – At least two Christmas tree farms in Ohio had trees stolen in the weeks leading up to Christmas. 

More than 200 trees were stolen from Smith Evergreen Nursery just after Thanksgiving. Police are investigating but no arrests have been made at this time. 

The Carroll County Sheriff’s Department also said 78 Fraser fir Christmas trees were stolen from a private farm between Dec. 7-9. The investigation is ongoing.

“It just makes you sick,” said nursery owner Ian Smith. “It hurts. It’s hard not to take it personally.”

Smith had security cameras in place, but they didn’t capture the theft near Magnolia, Ohio. The thieves, Smith said, cut some trees and stole cut-and-bundled trees from a loaded truck and the surrounding yard. The truck had been moved but left behind. 

“Usually, it’s ATVs. Side-by-sides. Chainsaws. Things like that get stolen. This is the first time I’ve ever taken a report for cut pine trees,” Deputy Erik Licht said.

Most of the trees taken were 7-foot to 9-foot Frasers. Smith said they were premium cuts from the nursery’s best fields, destined for garden centers, a church and a Boy Scout troop in Cincinnati. He estimated the stolen trees were worth roughly $8,000 to $10,000 from a wholesale standpoint, easily twice that much at retailers. Smith is offering a $500 reward for tips that lead to a culprit.

“But we’re blessed,” Smith said. “We’ll recover. We’ll pick up. We’ll get through it.”

According to Smith, money isn’t the biggest blow. It’s the thought of how much time and effort went into each of the trees. Smith Evergreen buys transplants and seedlings to grow at farms across Carroll County, “in a painstaking process complicated by droughts and hungry deer,” Smith said.

Smith said the trees that were taken were raised at a farm in southern Carroll County, where they were planted as 3-year-old seedlings.

“These trees have been in the ground for 10 years,” Smith said. “Ten years of mowing them, trimming them, spraying them, fertilizing, nurturing. Last year they could have been cut. They may have been not quite ready. This year they were ready. We did it. We cut them, bailed them, hauled them. All the work was done. And then they walk out the back door. So that’s really what stings the most.”

The nursery has since repositioned its cameras to eliminate blind spots.

Christmas trees are a small part of the family’s business. The nursery grows a wide range of pine, spruce and fir trees, and a few other varieties, for landscaping. But the Christmas trees are sentimental.

“That really is where our heart is,” said Smith, whose grandfather started out with a small Christmas lot in the 1950s.

The nursery sells about 5,000 Christmas trees each year, from multiple farms.