If you fell a firewood tree and block it up then, wait several weeks before splitting it, hairline cracks will develop, indicating planes of weakness and showing you the best places to strike for easiest splitting.
A useful observation
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There may be a few exceptions to the rule though. Locally, madrona is easy to split green and not so once it has sat long enough to start checking. The longer one waits to split, the harder it seems to get.
My Dad taught me a trick to speed the drying of firewood. He called it "wilting the tree". If you cut down a tree that is in leaf, let is sit for a couple weeks. As the leaves wilt they are sucking moisture out of the tree. He claimed that by doing so you could cut in half the time needed to dry the wood.
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