The very best firewoods

Six excellent woods for heat

Here's a list of six of the best firewoods. (The number in parenthesis is millions of BTUs produced by a cord of this wood under optimal conditions.)

• Sugar maple (25.0)
• Red oak (25.3)
• White oak (27.0)
• Black locust (28.1)
• Shagbark hickory (29.1)
• Osage orange (30.7)

(Source: Wood Fuel for Heating, a University of Missouri extension service publication)

A few years ago, I did a lot of research on wood stoves as we prepared to buy a new one. In one online forum, I read an interchange between a New Englander and a Midwesterner. The Midwesterner wondered whether a certain brand of wood stove would withstand the hot fires he liked to made with hedge (Osage orange) firewood.

The New Englander replied that he made hot white oak fires all the time in his wood stove of that brand. He said with considerable scorn that he doubted if hedge could burn as hot as the fine white oak of the East Coast. He should have done a little research because, according to the University of Missouri publication linked above, he was mistaken.

Hedges in Nebraska, 1870

Honey locust as a hedging plant

In my post yesterday, I wrote about Osage orange hedges planted in the mid-19th century on the American prairies. Barbed wire hadn't been invented and there weren't enough trees to make rail fences, so hedges were used to create pastures where livestock could be kept.

In east central Nebraska, J.P. Dunlap experimented with Osage orange hedges, but found honey locust to be more hardy. Cold winter temperatures, drought, and grasshoppers were some of the challenges that hedges faced on the prairies.

"In the spring of 1870 I began planting trees. Osage orange seed was planted. Plants grew well, those not needed for myself were sold to neighbors. People twenty miles away were called neighbors in those days. Fence rows of osage died in places. Honey locust for fence proved hardy, but when barb wire came into use, demand for hedge plants ceased."

J.P. Dunlap of Dwight, Nebraska, in Nebraska History and Record of Pioneer Days, published by the Nebr. State Historical Society. Vol. 5, No. 4 (October-December, 1922), p. 53.

Related post: Jonathan Baldwin Turner and Osage orange hedges

Jonathan Baldwin Turner and Osage orange hedges

An alternative to wooden fences on the treeless plains

Jonathan Baldwin Turner (1805-1899) is credited with popularizing Osage orange hedges on America's prairies in the mid-1800s. Turner came to Illinois in 1833 and taught at Illinois College in Jacksonville, Illinois, until 1847.

Turner was interested in the industrial development of Illinois. While he was a professor, he traveled around the state, talking about the need for industrial education (education related to work).

Everywhere Turner went, he saw that the lack of fencing material on the open prairies was holding back progress. Trees were unavailable to provide logs for split-rail fences. Farmers were limited in their ability to keep livestock or even to mark the boundaries of their land.

Turner was certain that hedges were the solution. He experimented with various native and foreign hedging plants, before settling on Osage orange (Maclura pomifera) as the best plant for the job. In four years time, a hedge of seedlings, planted 12 inches apart, was big enough and thorny enough to contain horses and cows, (though not always hogs).

After Turner left his job as a professor, he started a Osage orange nursery from which he sold seedlings. He made an intensive effort to popularize the Osage orange hedge, and by the time of the Civil War, seed was in high demand. Thousands of miles of Osage orange hedge were planted in Illinois, Iowa, and other prairie states by the 1870s.

The nursery was just one of Turner's projects when he left teaching. He became an activist for industrial education He was instrumental in getting the Morrill Land-Grant Colleges Act passed in 1862, under which many of America's state universities were created. He was also an active abolitionist and a member of the Underground Railroad. He is most famous for his work in these areas.

Barbed wire became widely available in the 1880s, and most of the Osage orange hedges were eventually grubbed out, but we still remember the hedges in one of the common names of Maclura pomifera -- "hedge apple tree". It is interesting that the Wikipedia entry about Jonathan Baldwin Turner doesn't even mention the words, "Osage orange."

More:
The Men Who Led: Jonathan Baldwin Turner
The Osage Orange for Hedges

Credit: Image from Wikipedia.

Native trees for dry, steep sites

Native trees that will grow on dry hillsides

These native trees will tolerate sites with excessive drainage -- hillsides, banks, or slopes, and extremely coarse soils. They will also tolerate droughty conditions, though most of them would like to have a little water sometimes. The common name of each tree is linked to its page in the USDA Plants Database.

Betula populifolia -- Gray birch (tolerates wet to dry conditions)
Carya tomentosa -- Mockernut hickory (prefers some moisture, tolerates dry)
Cotinus americanus -- American smoketree (prefers moist, tolerates dry)
Crataegus crusgali -- Cockspur hawthorn (prefers moist, tolerates dry)
Crataegus mollis -- Downy hawthorn (prefers moist, tolerates dry)
Crataegus nitida -- Glossy hawthorn (prefers moist, tolerates dry)
Crataegus phaenopyrum -- Washington hawthorn (prefers moist, tolerates dry)
Crataegus punctata -- Frosted (or dotted) hawthorn (prefers moist, tolerates dry)
Fraxinus quadrangulata -- Blue ash (tolerates wet to dry conditions)
Juniperus virginiana -- Eastern redcedar (tolerates wet to dry conditions)
Liridendron tulipifera -- Tuliptree or yellow poplar (prefers some moisture, tolerates dry)
Maclura pomifera -- Osage orange or hedgeapple (prefers moist, tolerates dry)
Pinus banksiana -- Jack pine (prefers some moisture, tolerates dry)
Pinus ponderosa -- Ponderosa pine (average to dry conditions)
Pinus rigida -- Pitch pine (average to dry conditions)
Populus deltoides -- Cottonwood or eastern poplar (tolerates wet to dry)
Prunus americana -- American wild plum (prefers some moisture, tolerates dry)
Prunus pennsylvanica -- Pin cherry (tolerates wet to dry)
Quercus marilandica -- Blackjack oak (dry)
Quercus muhlenbergi -- Chinkapin oak (dry)
Quercus velutina -- Black oak (prefers some moisture, tolerates dry)
Rhus species -- Various sumacs (prefer some moisture, tolerate dry)
Robinia pseudoacacia -- Black locust (prefers some moisture, tolerates dry)
Sassafras albidum -- Sassafras (tolerates wet to dry)

The Osage orange tree

Bow-wood tree, bodark, hedge apple, Maclura pomifera

John Dunn Hunter, a leader of the Cherokees was a white man, who was captured by Indians as a toddler. He's an interesting person, but this is a tree blog, not a history blog, so you'll have to read more about him elsewhere if you are interested.

Here's John Dunn Hunter's description of the Osage orange tree, a native tree of Texas and Oklahoma, as he wrote it in the early 1800's:

...I shall close this subject with a few observations on the Osage orange, or bow-wood tree, which I have previously mentioned, but of which very little appears to be known. It is found in abundance on the St. Francis, White, and some parts of the Arkansas, Vermillion, Canadian, and Osage rivers; and there are a few scattering ones on the Kansas; I do not recollect to have seen them farther north, though they may exist on the Missouri, and in many other places, without my knowledge. The tree delights in a fertile, and rather dry soil, and attains to the height of from fifteen to thirty feet, with a trunk proportionally large.

In May or June, the male, or tree not bearing fruit, is covered with numerous pale yellow flowers, which expand in nearly the same manner as those of the dogwood (Cornus Florida), though they are not so large. The fruit ripens in the fore part of the fall; is also of a pale yellow colour, spheroidal shaped, and about the size of a large hen's egg. It is slightly pulpy, and acid, and by many of the Indians esteemed as an agreeable esculent. The rind, when wounded, especially before ripe, emits a milky juice, much resembling that of the silk plant (Asclepius syriaca).

When solitary, or on the prairies, it is usually barren; but its branches become more expanded, the colour of the foliage of a richer green, and its top assumes a rounded and beautiful appearance. The wood is coarse grained, of a deep yellow colour, and is held in high estimation by the Indians, on account of its great elastic properties. They manufacture it into bows, which become articles of commerce, and are sometimes exchanged for peltries, &c. I knew a Sioux to give his horse for a single one; and among the upper tribes they frequently bring three or four beaver skins each. This tree is so highly valued, that they never destroy it, except when wanted for use, or in the territories of their enemies; in the latter case, they make its destruction as particular an object, as they do that of their game. It probably would afford a beautiful yellow dye, and to a certainty, add a rich variety to inlaid cabinet furniture.

The tree is hardy, and would probably flourish in any part of the United States, between the parallel latitudes of 30° and 40°, and perhaps still farther north. It appears, both for utility and ornament, to hold out sufficient inducements to warrant particular attention to its cultivation.

From Memoirs of a Captivity Among the Indians of North America by John Dunn Hunter; 3rd edition, pp172-174. (London: Longman, Hurst, Rees, Ohme, Brown, & Green, 1824.)

Related site: Building the Osage Bow