Carnes Farms (The Dogwood Company)

Our take

Carnes Farms, also known as The Dogwood Company, is run by Ali and Adam Carnes on roughly 60 acres near Pontotoc. It’s a relatively young operation as Mississippi tree farms go — the couple planted about 250 Leyland cypress trees and opened to the public for the first time around 2019, two years later. Since then it’s grown into an established choose-and-cut operation, though “choose-and-cut” here specifically means cut-your-own: the record marks cut_your_own true and choose_and_cut false, meaning there’s no staff-assisted or pre-tagged option — you find, cut, and haul out your own tree.

One species, one clear number

Unlike most farms in this batch, Carnes Farms has an actual traceable price on record: $12 per foot, according to Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal (Djournal.com) coverage of a recent season. That’s honest, usable information for budgeting. Using only that stated rate, a 6-foot tree works out to $72 and an 8-foot tree to $96 — simple arithmetic on the real number, not an invented range. What isn’t confirmed is whether that $12-per-foot rate still holds for 2026; the article describing it may reflect an earlier season, so treat it as a strong starting expectation rather than a locked-in price until you call to confirm.

The tradeoff for a genuinely single-species farm is exactly that: one species. The farm grows and sells Leyland cypress exclusively, with no Fraser fir or other precut stock brought in. If you’re set on a traditional fir, this isn’t your stop; if a Leyland cypress works for your household, the pricing clarity here is a real advantage over the many farms in this file with no pricing at all.

No pre-tagging changes the visit itself

A specific and useful detail from the research: this farm does not offer pre-tagging. At many farms, you can reserve a specific tree earlier in the season and come back to cut it later. Here, the process is walk the field, cut, and carry the tree out yourself, the same day. That means you should budget more time for browsing the rows than you might at a farm where the choice is already made for you, and you should be prepared to do the actual carrying without assuming carts or staff help will be available — none is mentioned in the record.

On the opening date

The Djournal article describes the opening as “Saturday before Thanksgiving,” which this record resolves to November 21, 2026 following the site’s relative-date convention. That’s a reasonable estimate based on a stated pattern, not a farm-confirmed date for this specific year, so a phone call to 662-419-1286 closer to Thanksgiving is worth the two minutes before you drive out. The farm stays open until it sells out rather than to a fixed closing date, so if you wait too long into December, there’s a real chance the good trees — or all of them — are gone, even though the farm itself may technically still be “open.”

The honest bottom line: Carnes Farms gives you rare, real pricing to plan around and a straightforward cut-your-own experience, but the single-species limitation and the estimated opening date are both worth knowing before you commit to the Saturday-before-Thanksgiving drive.