What say U?

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Butcher

Butcher

Minister of Fire
Nov 2, 2011
530
N. central Ia.
On another forum that I post alot on (antique tractors and farming and just general BS) a fella from upstate N.Y. was thinkin of sellin farwood as he has a pretty sizable patch of timber and needs the $. He was askin about some varities of trees on his property and if they would be considered hardwoods. He was using some regonal slang words for the names of these trees as he really dont know much about trees I'm thinkin so I really didnt know what kinda wood he was talkin about.
Anyways, another guy who is collage edjucated in horticulture replyed and told him any deciduous tree is concidered a hardwood and any evergreen is a softwood. Well, that got my pea brain ta thinkin that just cuz this collage boy who used ta work for a big golf coarse and had all kindsa book smarts was full of shut so I repyed that I had a stove full of basswood at the moment (which I did) and iffn you want to call that hardwood I would pour milk and sugar on a split and eat it. He came back sayin I best start chewin and went into this long post that was either copyied from the interweb or what ever he was book taught. So I replyed that in the context of the origonal question about FARWOOD you could not blanket all trees into the same catagories like that. Techwise he is correct but not in the farwood world I'm thinkin.
I'm not lookin to vindicate myself in this little pizzn match but for those of you that have to buy your wood how would you feel iffn I was to sell you a load of "hardwood" that was half cottonwood and half Iowa fenceline wild plum trees?
What do you consider 'hardwood' farwood in your neck of the woods?
 
College Boy is right. Softwood has needles and hardwood has leaves. Put a space in there if you want to make a distinction of how hard the wood is. Cottonwood is soft wood compared to other hardwoods like Oak.
 
There are soft hardwoods and hard softwoods, kind of like I am in the lower half of the upper middle class. :-S i don't pay much attention to the "classes". I know seasoned oak, locust, cherry, burns great and there is plenty of it around here. I have the luxury of not having to even consider the stuff with needles on it, not that there is anything wrong with it.
 
Hardwood, Softwood blah blah blah. College boy don't know his elbow from his ear lobe. Well technically he is right. I use most all of it for firewood. Good advice for your other guy wanting to sell wood, find out what sells for firewood in his area, sell that. There is money to be had in wood but there is also a time investment. For goodness sake tell him to not false advertise about seasoned this or full cord that! Just make a full cord stack and let it sit till it sells.
 
LLigetfa said:
College Boy is right. Softwood has needles and hardwood has leaves. Put a space in there if you want to make a distinction of how hard the wood is. Cottonwood is soft wood compared to other hardwoods like Oak.
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Like I said, I know technically he is right but in a real world situation lumpin all woods into a class like that dont work fer me. I've grubbed out 50+ yearold Yews that are an ever green and that is some hard dagum wood.
Dont mean shut to me anyhows, just makin conversation I guess.
'sides, I defrosted 1 of our freezers today and found a bunch of corn on the cob in the bottom of it and got it cookin on the woodstove so that is my main priority right now. Little taste of summer dontcha know.
 
Are you gonna have room for that corn after you eat that split with the sugar and milk on it, I would go with some green wood it shoud be easier to chew. :lol:
 
Butcher said:
LLigetfa said:
College Boy is right. Softwood has needles and hardwood has leaves. Put a space in there if you want to make a distinction of how hard the wood is. Cottonwood is soft wood compared to other hardwoods like Oak.
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Like I said, I know technically he is right but in a real world situation....
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College boy, we don't burn no dictionary hardwood. Just the real stuff.
 
Pfft.. I'm no fan of Popple or Cottonwood but it seems there are a lot of folk here that will burn that chit.
 
oldspark said:
Are you gonna have room for that corn after you eat that split with the sugar and milk on it, I would go with some green wood it shoud be easier to chew. :lol:
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All depends on iffn my teefers hold out. What few I have left that is.
 
Try and pound a nail in dried cottonwood and then tell me how hard it is.
 
LLigetfa said:
Pfft.. I'm no fan of Popple or Cottonwood but it seems there are a lot of folk here that will burn that chit.
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Why don't you like poplar?
 
oldspark said:
Try and pound a nail in dried cottonwood and then tell me how hard it is.
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Cotton wood dries??? Around here it sort of disappears in to a lump of black moldy ooze that looks like a piece of wood.... Really, I have never tried to actually season it because I get every other type of wood we have around here.
 
RNLA said:
oldspark said:
Try and pound a nail in dried cottonwood and then tell me how hard it is.
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Cotton wood dries??? Around here it sort of disappears in to a lump of black moldy ooze that looks like a piece of wood.... Really, I have never tried to actually season it because I get every other type of wood we have around here.
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They use it for trailer planking some times, best to get it drilled and stuck down on the trailer when its green, hard to believe but its tough stuff.
 
I think the definition of hardwood and softwood that college boy is using wasn't developed by wood burners. I am not sure why a wood burner would try to lump all woods into only two categories. i don't really know who uses the terms 'hardwood' and 'softwood.' Broadleaved and coniferous are better ways to describe trees.
 
Well, Botanists have done their best to classify trees (and all other plants) according to the way they grow and reproduce and such. Some interesting (and non-intuitive) classifications result from this...for example, Balsa is a hardwood (Botanically speaking). Likewise, Yew is a softwood. (Tell that to my splitter). I really think that for woodburners, the finer distinctions of Botanical science aren't particularly important, especially for all of us living in North America. I'd say that the rule of thumb that deciduous trees are hardwoods and evergreens are softwoods will nearly always suffice. This is from Wikipedia:

"Hardwood is wood from angiosperm trees (more strictly speaking non-monocot angiosperm trees). It may also be used for those trees themselves: these are usually broad-leaved; in temperate and boreal latitudes they are mostly deciduous, but in tropics and subtropics mostly evergreen.

Hardwood contrasts with softwood (which comes from conifer trees). Hardwoods are not necessarily harder than softwoods. In both groups there is an enormous variation in actual wood hardness, with the range in density in hardwoods completely including that of softwoods; some hardwoods (e.g. balsa) are softer than most softwoods, while yew is an example of a hard softwood. The hardest hardwoods are much harder than any softwood. There are about a hundred times as many hardwoods as softwoods."
 
Butcher said:
how would you feel iffn I was to sell you a load of "hardwood" that was half cottonwood and half Iowa fenceline wild plum trees?
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As I type this, I'd be a little miffed, but going forward, I'd ask for specific tree types. Also, I'd take the time to look over the wood before buying it... I don't get the impression that everyone defines "seasoned" the same way.
Butcher said:
What do you consider 'hardwood' farwood in your neck of the woods?
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Oak and manzanita... I live in a coniferous forest, so most everything around here is considered softwood, but there's no shortage of oak.
 
I have birch & spruce as my main wood. Some alder & cottonwood.
Birch is # 1 & my hard wood, spruce 2nd best for BTU.
Alder & cottonwood are considered hard woods, but pretty soft & lower in BTU;
Balsa wood isn't a conifer, but I wouldn't call it hardwood :) Sometimes college & logic don't match up, like educated & smart don't come together all the time :)
 
I learned Cottonwood was a "hardwood" about 30 years ago, get over it. :lol:
 
College boy is technically correct in his classifications, but college boy better not sell sell all poplar cords as "hardwood cords." He will have a lot of headaches and PO'ed customers--well, at least around here he would.

Cords are sold by species here. A cord of oak, cord of black locust, cord of mixed hardwoods (oak, ash, beech, maple (hard or soft), black cherry). I leave elm stacked by itself because many don't want it. Also, we are blessed with so many good hardwoods here that there really isn't time to process soft hardwoods (Aspens, tuliptree, sassafras, cottonwood, etc.).
 
oldspark said:
I learned Cottonwood was a "hardwood" about 30 years ago, get over it. :lol:
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"Learned" it was a hardwood around then or before, but don't "Know" it's a hardwood yet. ;)
 
Face cords of Maple and Oak get sold in this part of upstate NY. Seems like people would rather have Silver than Ironwood, Beech or Locust. Shows in what is available for scrounging too.
 
bogydave said:
oldspark said:
I learned Cottonwood was a "hardwood" about 30 years ago, get over it. :lol:
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"Learned" it was a hardwood around then or before, but don't "Know" it's a hardwood yet. ;)[/quote Its funny cause the first time I was told that I thought they were full of it. Bottom feeder at best.
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What we can take away from this discussion is that overly broad terms like hardwood and softwood aren't very helpful. Best to get over your aversion to book-larnin' and call trees and their wood by their proper species names, preferably the scientific binomials. Otherwise we wind up in this predicament:
He was using some regonal slang words for the names of these trees as he really dont know much about trees I’m thinkin so I really didnt know what kinda wood he was talkin about.
 
[quote author="TreePointer" date="1329123943"]College boy is technically correct in his classifications, but college boy better not sell sell all poplar cords as "hardwood cords." He will have a lot of headaches and PO'ed customers--well, at least around here he would.

quote]

Congrates! You get an A+ in this discussion. I felt that since 1 guy with a lot of knowledge was giving advice to someone who wasnt quite as knowledgable it might be wise to start a debate as to selling farwood and not just lumpin all trees into the same pile. Cuz like you say, the fella that was wunderin about selling wood offn his property would have some pretty POed customers.

Oh, and, oldspark, the old 120 year old farm house we usta live in was sheathed inside and out with cottonwood boards. Some as wide as 20" that were obviously nailed on green with cut nails. I tore the lath and plaster off in a couple of rooms to hang sheetrock. And I will agree, that old CW was so hard I was twistin of screwws by the dozens. Just wouldnt call it a hardwood in the farwood sence.
And the corn on the cob fixed on the woodstove last night was GREAT!

God I love a good debate. Thanks.
 
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