RACINE COUNTY - Inflation has hit many consumer goods this year, but a good old-fashioned live Christmas tree may still cost about the same as it did in 2006.

Some Christmas tree sellers here say their prices are on par with last year's. But at this point, availability, not price, is the issue.

By next weekend, the supply of trees may be drying up like an indoor Christmas tree in March. Over the weekend, several area retailers saw their last trees head off to adoptive homes.

Roger Hays, co-owner of Klema Feeds, bought 1,100 Christmas trees this year. By 3 p.m. Sunday, he was down to

about 13.

It's not hard to find Christmas trees in Wisconsin, one of the top eight U.S. states in tannenbaum production as recently as 2002. Hays buys his trees with a road trip, passing by Osseo, Prentice, Brantwood and Merrill with a flatbed semi-trailer and buying trees from five different growers.

The prices at Klema Feeds, where highways K and H meet, may appear erratic. "You can have the same kind of tree side by side, one will be $25 and one $60," Hays said. "I price based on what I pay."

But overall, he said his prices have remained pretty constant for five or six years.

Customer preferences do shift, though. Instead of heavy demand for compact, perfectly sheared trees, "more and more people want the ones that are looser," Hays said. "Some growers are figuring that out and growing them faster, leaving them a little looser."

Fraser frenzy

Sitting in his car to keep warm Sunday afternoon in the Kortendick Hardware parking lot, John Longo watched as his last nine or 10 trees dwindled to six or seven.

Longo proudly claims to have sold Christmas trees "longer than anyone in town." At 49 years, who can challenge that?

He got his 535 to 550 trees from a grower in Wautoma and one in Antigo: a combination of sheared balsam fir; natural balsam fir; and Fraser fir.

A tree dropping in popularity, Longo said, is the long- and sharp-needled Scotch pine, which he didn't bother carrying this year.

In contrast, Longo said, "every year I go up (in number) on Frasers."

The Fraser fir, often called the Cadillac of Christmas trees, appears to be rising in popularity with customers despite its higher price.

In fact, for the second straight year, Borzynski's Farm & Floral Market has carried nothing but Frasers, office manager Peggy Schmidt said. "There's that much demand for the Frasers," she said.

She said Borzynski's carried somewhere between 600 and 800 Christmas trees this year, from a grower in North Carolina, which is also one of the top-producing states for the trees. The prices were pretty much even with last year: $45 for a 6- to 7-footer; $55 for a 7- to 8-footer; and about $120 for a 10- to 12-foot specimen.

On Saturday, the last full-size trees were sold. By Sunday, the market at 11600 Highway 20 had run out of all Christmas trees except the 2- to 3-foot tabletop size.