INDIANA, Pa. — Thousands of Fraser fir Christmas trees are stacked and wrapped in plastic twine behind Musser Forests Inc. in the rolling hills of Indiana County, the self-proclaimed "Christmas Tree Capital of the World."

Each day leading up to the holiday season, thousands are shipped in tractor-trailers from Musser to retail lots across the East Coast.

But Fred Musser Jr., 65, the owner and president of the firm his father started in 1928, said the Christmas tree business in Pennsylvania isn't what it used to be.

"Everybody and their brother was growing trees 20 years ago, but that's all changed," he said over a lunch of baked chicken, creamed noodles and corn after a morning of deer hunting. "I don't think there's too many people getting into it these days."

There's also the popularity of the Fraser fir, a tree that holds its soft, dark green-and-silver needles better and has stronger branches than other trees. Unlike the quick-growing Scotch pine, which is more susceptible to disease and pests, the Fraser prefers higher elevations than those found in Pennsylvania.

The Musser family helped launch the state's Christmas tree industry, and Pennsylvania now has more Christmas tree farms (2,164) than any other state, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Indiana County, perhaps best known as the birthplace of actor Jimmy Stewart, harvested more trees (149,896) than any other county Pennsylvania.

The growth of Christmas trees as a farm crop started in Indiana County in about 1918, according to the Indiana County Christmas Tree Growers' Association.

"Before people just went out in the wild and got one," said Gregg Van Horn, a tree farmer and president of the association.

The industry picked up in the 1930s and '40s as growing methods improved, Van Horn said. As family farming in the area declined, farmers realized they could plant trees on steep hillside land that was no longer profitable to till. By 1960, there were more than 200 growers in the county harvesting more than 1 million Christmas trees a year.

Fred Musser III, 38, the nursery manager, said the company sold up to 185,000 trees a year from the late 1940s through the 1960s but that it expects to sell only 28,000 this year.

"We were probably the largest in the country if not the world," he said. "Now we're not even the largest in Pennsylvania."

Musser Jr. blames the decline on artificial trees and the increasing dominance of the Fraser fir, which is native to the southern Appalachian Mountains and prefers higher elevations. It also can take up to 15 years to grow in Pennsylvania, Musser Jr. said.

"Not too many people can wait 15 years to get a return," he said. "I think there's always going to be a market for good trees, I just don't think it's going to be the mass deal that it used to be."

Though Pennsylvania has more farms than any other state, it ranks fourth in trees harvested. Oregon, the No. 1 producer, harvests nearly four times as many.

With plans to open a cut-your-own tree business on a hillside field behind his home, Van Horn isn't getting out of the Christmas tree industry any time soon. He thinks there's a future in the business because natural trees are coming back into vogue, especially among younger buyers.

Eric Miller, 31, of Indiana, is one of them. From the garden center at Musser, he picked out a nearly $30 concolor fir, whose long, soft needles smell almost like citrus.

"It's a little different from the usual Douglas fir, the Fraser fir. It just kind of jumped out at me," he said.

Customers today demand more varieties and higher quality than customers in the boom years, Musser Jr. said. But although they may buy fewer trees, they're willing to pay more.

"So things aren't as bad as it seems," he said.