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[Gene GeRue <genegerue AT ruralize.com>]

I am working my way through a huge pile of old magazines, to lessen  
the load to Heartwood. I find it hard to discard them. This is from  
Harrowsmith Country Life October 1995:

Splitting Secrets
Live or dead, ash or birch, all wood dries faster if split. Splitting  
isn't just to get the big pieces into the little stove but to speed  
the seasoning process.
Few species are as retentive as birch, but none dry readily through  
the bark. The bark is there, in part, to keep the sap in. When cut,  
the log will dry through the cut ends, but slowly. There isn't much  
surface area exposed to drying winds--splitting exposes a lot more  
surface for evaporation.
The first lesson is to split sooner rather than later. Although most  
species of wood need 9 to 12 months to season fully once split, many  
will dry to an acceptable 35 percent moisture content in as little as  
3 months. Those who pile wood in the round to split later, as they  
need it, have missed the point. The sooner it's split, the faster it  
seasons.
The best time to fell trees and cut and split them is in the dormant  
winter season, when the sap is largely in the ground and not in the  
trunk. Less drying to do. Also, the alternate freezing and thawing of  
early spring helps to open cracks in firewood, and the cracks expose  
more of the innards to drying air. Finally, summer's heat speeds the  
rate of evaporation from all those cracks and, ideally, from all those  
split surfaces
If you must cut a live tree in the summer, fell it and leave it for a  
few weeks. It will continue to give off moisture through the leaves  
until they dry up and fall.
--Charles Long


Gene GeRue
www.RURALIZE.com