CHERRYFIELD — Printed signs used at this season to post Christmas tree plantations and other woodlands against trespass are available to landowners upon request at the office of the Down East Resource Conservation and Development Council.

Velma Orcutt, a council staff member, said Tuesday that requests for the “Christmas Tree Law” signs had been so numerous that more signs were being printed.

The signs are a reminder that the sale of Christmas trees and evergreen boughs for Christmas wreaths is regulated by Maine’s Christmas Tree Law. The law is enforced by forest rangers, game wardens, the Maine State Police, county sheriffs and municipal law-enforcement agencies.

The law forbids any person, firm or corporation to cut Christmas trees or boughs for Christmas wreaths on the land of another without written permission from the landowner.

The law authorizes the confiscation and immediate sale of brush that has been harvested without permission of the landowner. The landowner, if identified, is reimbursed for the loss of brush. Otherwise, the money goes to the state.

The penalties for violations of the law include, but are not limited to, fines from $10 to $500, imprisonment for up to three years, or both a fine and imprisonment.

According to the text of the law, authority to make inspections, investigations, arrests and disposals of trees and boughs is shared by all branches of the law-enforcement agencies, from the state to the local levels.

The violator of the law, if convicted, also faces the possibility of becoming liable for treble damages, to be paid to the landowner. The law places Christmas trees and evergreen boughs in a class of commodities such as timber, wood and gravel, for loss of which a landowner may recover treble damages from a convicted violator of the law.

Harvesters of balsam-fir brush for Christmas wreaths have been active for two weeks throughout the Down East area. Wholesale dealers are buying wreaths made at home for prices up to $28 a dozen, and local wreath manufacturers began this week to buy brush at rates ranging from 16 to 20 cents a pound.

By the time three or four pounds of balsam-fir brush have been fashioned into a wreath, the value of the product will have doubled. As soon as a dealer has decorated and packaged the wreath for shipment, the value will have doubled again.

Rangers from the Eastern Region of the Maine Forest Service spend hundreds of hours each November and December answering complaints of the theft of wreath brush in the two Down East counties. Each season, warnings and court summonses are issued, stolen brush is confiscated, fines are collected and restitution is made to landowners.

A report on possible ways for a landowner to limit the theft of wreath brush is available at the council office on Route 182. In the report, landowners are advised to “keep an eye on their land” and to mark the boundaries. In cases where permission is given for the harvest of brush, the landowners are advised to give specific instructions on the permission slips as to where the brush is to be harvested.

Also available to landowners at the council office is a forest fact sheet titled “Growing Better Balsam Fir Wreath Brush.”

The Christmas Tree Law is 12 MRSA, Title 32, Chapter 805, Section 8841-8849. Copies of the law are available upon request from the Maine Department of Conservation in Augusta.