The fake tree is not a modern shortcut. Germans were making tree-shaped wooden pyramids by 1747 and feather trees from dyed goose feathers by the 1880s, and in 1930 the British Addis Housewares Company began turning out bristle trees on the same machinery it used for toilet brushes, dyed green to imitate pine needles. Post-war plastics did the rest. Artificial trees overtook real ones in American homes around the turn of the century: roughly 46% of US households with a tree used an artificial one in 1992, rising to 58% by 2004. That history explains the shape of the argument. People defending real trees are defending one specific attribute, smell, and the polling bears that out: 79% say a real tree smells better. People defending artificial trees are defending cost, effort and safety, and they win those by wide margins. The environmental claim is the part that stays unsettled; it is disputed in both directions, and one Kansas State University researcher has called the eco-friendly case an urban myth.