Tree grower Matt Quinn won third place overall in the People’s Choice Award category for one of his balsam-Fraser hybrid trees. Quinn is shown Tuesday with other hybrid trees at The Cornville Christmas Tree Company LLC in Cornville. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

Matthew Quinn exudes excitement when he talks about growing Christmas trees.

“There are so many reasons why a real Christmas tree is great,” he said. “They’re good for the environment. One acre of Christmas trees provides enough oxygen for 18 people a day, so we provide oxygen to our friends and our neighbors. We provide habitat for critters — big and small mammals, robins and other songbirds. They build nests in trees. If you get a nest in your Christmas tree, that’s great luck.”

Tree grower Matt Quinn won third place overall in the People’s Choice Award category for one of his balsam-Fraser hybrid trees. Quinn is shown Tuesday with other hybrid trees at The Cornville Christmas Tree Company LLC in Cornville. Rich Abrahamson/Morning Sentinel

Quinn, 45, owns Quinn’s Tree Farm with his wife Christine in Cornville. Besides the joy he gets from being out in the fresh air among the aroma of fresh evergreens and teaching people what he knows about them, he also just can’t get enough of watching kids pile out of cars and run to pick one out.

“I love it,” he said. “I live for it.”

This year, Quinn has even more reason to wax eloquent about his tree-growing business, which is formally named Cornville Christmas Tree Co. LLC.

The 7-foot-tall balsam-Fraser hybrid tree he entered in the recent Fryeburg Fair tree competition won third place overall in the People’s Choice Award category, and will be among three trees to be decorated and displayed at the Blaine House, Gov. Janet Mills’ residence in Augusta. Finestkind Tree Farms in Dover-Foxcroft won first place for its blue Korean fir and second place for its balsam fir. A wreath created by Quinn team member Raya Marshall also won third place overall in the People’s Choice decorated wreath category and will be at the governor’s mansion.

Quinn, vice president of the Maine Christmas Tree Association, is elated.

“The really cool thing about it is the votes we get from the people of Maine,” he said.

Matthew Quinn recently holds up the winning 7-foot-tall balsam-Fraser hybrid tree at Cornville Christmas Tree Company. The tree will be among three to be decorated and displayed at the Blaine House in Augusta. Quinn grows many trees on both his own land and property owned by other people, and the winning tree came from the property of Peter Mills, the governor’s brother, who also lives in Cornville. Contributed photo

There is coincidence and irony about Quinn’s winning tree: He grows many trees on both his own land and property owned by other people, and it just so happens that the winning balsam-Frazer hybrid came from the property of Peter Mills, the governor’s brother, who also lives in Cornville. When I spoke to Quinn early this week, he had not yet informed Peter Mills of that fact. But he finds the irony delightful.

“His tree is going to his sister’s house,” he said.

The enthusiasm in Quinn’s voice is palpable as he describes what the month of November portends for his business, based at 290 West Ridge Road, where people may select and cut trees.

“I open for retail the day after Thanksgiving,” he said. “I start harvesting for wholesale orders the second week in November and they pick up the trees the weekend before Thanksgiving. The crew will start making wholesale wreaths the first of November. We are tipping now.”

Quinn’s trees are sold in a lot off Court Street in downtown Skowhegan, as well as at the farm. He said some people come and spend hours looking for just the right one. Some explore for a while, leave to check out other farms, and return.

“Then I have people who’ll come in and say, ‘Looks good,’ take a tree and put it on their vehicle.”

Quinn, who sells balsam, balsam-Fraser hybrids and Korean firs, comes from a family that has been entrenched in Cornville and the wider community for many years. His parents, Jeff and Susan Quinn, who live just down the road, have operated the nonprofit Lakewood Theater in Madison for about 40 years, and his sister, Katie, runs the Lakewood Inn, a restaurant.

An affable man with a keen sense of humor, Matthew Quinn describes his tree-growing business as solid and stable. Maine tree growers, he said, are a close-knit group and they bat ideas back and forth all the time. The Maine Christmas Tree Association’s president, Ryan Liberty of Wells, won Reserve Grand Champion in the Fryeburg Fair contest for a balsam fir from his Crooked Brook Farm, and many other contestants got awards conferred by a panel of judges in a variety of categories.

Some might say tree growers are killing forests, but that’s not the case at all, according to Quinn. They plant on fields, many of which are hilly and not suitable for farming, and the soil they use is often second-rate and rocky.

“For every tree that I harvest, I plant three in its place, so I’m planting 3,000 seedlings every year,” he said.

Quinn loves that his trees end up in places as far away as Virginia and as local as Waterville, Oakland and other central Maine communities. But what he relishes most is seeing the joy on his customers’ faces as they create holiday memories.

“Very few people — very few — leave grumpy,” he said. “Or, if they come grumpy, they typically don’t leave grumpy.”

Amy Calder has been a Morning Sentinel reporter 35 years. Her columns appear here Saturdays. She is the author of the book, “Comfort is an Old Barn,” a collection of her curated columns, published in 2023 by Islandport Press. She may be reached at acalder@centralmaine.com. For previous Reporting Aside columns, go to centralmaine.com