One of the great joys (being scarcastic) of early American life was the cutting, splitting, and stacking of firewood. Everybody had the same problem when it came to heating homes for winter. They all had fireplaces and needed something to burn in those fireplaces. A few people used coal if available.......but for most, the answer was FIREWOOD. Wood was usually available in unlimited supply, cheap, and did the job. It didn't take long to discover that some types of wood burned longer and hotter than others. Oak, hickory, osage orange, and pecan burned long and hot, while cottonwood and willow hardly burned at all. Pine burned great, but pitch from the smoke would stick on your chimney flew, and sometimes caused the chimey to catch fire. The chimney fire would then likely catch the house on fire.
Some wood split easily like oak. Some wouldn't split at all like sweetgum. All that meant that a person had to know how to identify there trees or suffer the consequences.
Firewood related stuff was usually the responsibility of teenagers if there were any in the family. Boys got the job most of the time, but girls were not exempt either.
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