Excellent read and very informative! Book written by father and son growing up in the New England woods. Being in the Woodshed, I only think this is pertinent. Quoted directly from book...
Trees I have Burned
Alder: firewood source out west. But at only 14 million btu per cord, it makes a Yankee grateful for maple.
Apple: the cook's favorite for flavor, apples makes good firewood because it burns so hot.
Ash: Of the hardwoods, ash is last to unfurl its leaves and first to drop them. It's straight grained and easy to split and dries quickly.
Aspen: i call it popple. It's pretty, but it's also pretty sorry cordwood.
Beech: the beech is stubborn hardwood. It just doesn't want to go down and is seemingly able to hold itself up by the merest twig, when by all rights and woodcraft it ought to be timbering. The beech's busy fingers also seem to snag more belt loops, whip more eyeballs, and generally add injury to obstruction in the woodlot. It has skin like an elephant and a memory just as long. There is a good side, though: Beech is actually one of our better sources of heat.
Birch: white, yellow, gray, black, and paper birch all grow fast and pretty and die young. They pack decent firewood in an attractive wrapper.
Cherry: sometimes straight as a rail, sometimes crooked as they come. Cherry has rough bark and orange wood that raise human spirits and warm our hearts.
Elm: old-timers have an apparently irrational mania about the elm. There are rhymes about what a pisser it is to split and how little heat it bequeaths. I am here to report to you that this prejudice is entirely justified. Elm will eat your axes and your mauls, your wedges and your labor. It will warm you twice in the woodlot, but precious little in the living room.
Hemlock: i hate to say anything on God's earth isn't worth the effort. Maybe we'll leave it at this: God didn't put Hemlock in your woodpile, so why should you?
Hickory: What's good for the barbeque is good for the woodstove.
Hornbeam: known as hop or American hornbeam, muscle wood, and ironwood, the tree contains very hard wood. It burns well when dry.
Locust: the dense bark demands extra drying time, but once locust is dry it is light and oily and throws serious heat.
Maple: the staple of the diet of the typical New England stove is maple. Red maple, also known as Swamp maple and other more derogatory terms, contains considerably less heat then its cousin, sugar maple, so you need to be able to tell them apart. You might guess this by hefting a piece of each when first cut: The sugar maple is denser and heavier.
Mesquite: it burns sweet and hot.
Oak: it's the good stuff: dense, heavy, and full of btus. Oaks come in red, white, scarlet, black, and pin (stripe).
Pine: white pin has the soft needles that remind me of christmas; long-leaf and pitch pines have lots of resin; ponderosa pine reaches huge heights. I used to cut lots of pulpwood; the pages of this book might be pine, in fact. These are all important virtues, but not to be confused with firewood. The high resin content will start a fire, for sure. But burning a whole load of it will leave a coating of creosote in your chimney increasing your chances of a chimney fire.
Walnut: don't burn tomorrow's furniture today.
Source
Philbrick, Frank & Stephen (2006). The backyard lumberjack: the ultimate guide to felling, bucking, splitting & stacking.
Trees I have Burned
Alder: firewood source out west. But at only 14 million btu per cord, it makes a Yankee grateful for maple.
Apple: the cook's favorite for flavor, apples makes good firewood because it burns so hot.
Ash: Of the hardwoods, ash is last to unfurl its leaves and first to drop them. It's straight grained and easy to split and dries quickly.
Aspen: i call it popple. It's pretty, but it's also pretty sorry cordwood.
Beech: the beech is stubborn hardwood. It just doesn't want to go down and is seemingly able to hold itself up by the merest twig, when by all rights and woodcraft it ought to be timbering. The beech's busy fingers also seem to snag more belt loops, whip more eyeballs, and generally add injury to obstruction in the woodlot. It has skin like an elephant and a memory just as long. There is a good side, though: Beech is actually one of our better sources of heat.
Birch: white, yellow, gray, black, and paper birch all grow fast and pretty and die young. They pack decent firewood in an attractive wrapper.
Cherry: sometimes straight as a rail, sometimes crooked as they come. Cherry has rough bark and orange wood that raise human spirits and warm our hearts.
Elm: old-timers have an apparently irrational mania about the elm. There are rhymes about what a pisser it is to split and how little heat it bequeaths. I am here to report to you that this prejudice is entirely justified. Elm will eat your axes and your mauls, your wedges and your labor. It will warm you twice in the woodlot, but precious little in the living room.
Hemlock: i hate to say anything on God's earth isn't worth the effort. Maybe we'll leave it at this: God didn't put Hemlock in your woodpile, so why should you?
Hickory: What's good for the barbeque is good for the woodstove.
Hornbeam: known as hop or American hornbeam, muscle wood, and ironwood, the tree contains very hard wood. It burns well when dry.
Locust: the dense bark demands extra drying time, but once locust is dry it is light and oily and throws serious heat.
Maple: the staple of the diet of the typical New England stove is maple. Red maple, also known as Swamp maple and other more derogatory terms, contains considerably less heat then its cousin, sugar maple, so you need to be able to tell them apart. You might guess this by hefting a piece of each when first cut: The sugar maple is denser and heavier.
Mesquite: it burns sweet and hot.
Oak: it's the good stuff: dense, heavy, and full of btus. Oaks come in red, white, scarlet, black, and pin (stripe).
Pine: white pin has the soft needles that remind me of christmas; long-leaf and pitch pines have lots of resin; ponderosa pine reaches huge heights. I used to cut lots of pulpwood; the pages of this book might be pine, in fact. These are all important virtues, but not to be confused with firewood. The high resin content will start a fire, for sure. But burning a whole load of it will leave a coating of creosote in your chimney increasing your chances of a chimney fire.
Walnut: don't burn tomorrow's furniture today.
Source
Philbrick, Frank & Stephen (2006). The backyard lumberjack: the ultimate guide to felling, bucking, splitting & stacking.
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