All considerations..cleanliness of cutting (how much can you cut without having to sharpen), amount of perfect rounds from a trunk(dang...perfect), high heat value(not the best, but so close..meh), ease of hand splitting (about as easy as it can get, have yet to see anything easier), ease of moving fresh cut green rounds as per weight,(easy, least amount of water weight) time to season (fast because it comes 3/4ths seasoned fresh cut), etc..ASH
This or that species scores higher or lower on various considerations, but taking all of the above into the equation, I come out with ash. Always been my favorite since cutting with a 30 inch bow saw and splitting with a light axe and being the human skidder getting it out of the woods, a long time ago....
Second is dogwood. No splitting required on most of it, just cut and stack as is, burns as good as any hardwood I have handled, dries well in a medium time frame, slower than ash, much faster than oak. Doesn't get giant here so none of it is ever heavy.
I would like hickory but too nasty to cut and wayyy to susceptible to relentless bug infestation. Plus shagbark eats chains like crazy and uses lead weighted sap. Frikking hernia wood. Then the bugs eat it. Burns real hot, that's it. I cut it, not my fav.
For a "two wood plan", if I had to pick, I like ash and tulip poplar, which I think of as "ash lite". Look almost the same at the trunk and cut clean, never any huge dirt deposits in them, similar nice large amounts of perfect rounds, split and dry about the same, poplar a little slower to get to the splitting phase (once there though as easy as it gets), and gives you a good morning kindling start the fire and shoulder season wood when split larger. About the only wood you can count on to burn readily, burn clean, and throw "warm" and not" hot" for those days you want just 'some" heat, without resorting to a smouldering stove. We just have a ton of coolish days here during heating season, say high 30s low 40s, where you really only need a "warm" stove. Trying to do that with primo hardwood is difficult, with poplar, it is perfect and easy.
I burn everything though, if I got to touch it, I burn it. Heck, I always wind up burning some swamp willow every year, just cause I got to cut it up if it falls into where I mow, so I tote it home, throw it in the stacks. Multiflora rose (some big bottom pieces) and a lot of privet bush stump chunks, that can get 6 inch diameter easy. I touch it, I am getting some use from it.
oak, all the other primo woods, sure, good stuff, just doesn't make it to the top of the list following all my personal criteria of what constitutes the best. Right of the bat takes way too long to properly season. Big rounds are a SOB to handle. etc. Burns good though, splits mostly easy. I prefer oak crotch uglies the best though,(talking uglies and not pretty wood) burn a looong time, throw heat all night long, still coals in the morning, and rarely get any sort of buggy hanging out for a year or three. I'm taking a lot now because want to get many years ahead, it is here for the taking, and it stays intact and not buggy. I'd much rather cut and process oak over hickory. I will be taking a very big quantity of hickory soon, but only because it needs to come down rom where it is, too close to a broiler house and a very large propane tank. given my druthers, i would just leave hickory alone to feed the wild critters. I could get enough other wood to never have to use it, and prefer to have as many wild critters around as possible. Just because.
I know I burned a little locust a long time ago, I remember the long spikes and big seed pods now and exactly where I got that wood (had to think on it a lot though), but very little to none around me now that I have found outside of those two baby saplings, neither have I found any of this hedge other than again, some tiny ones, well, I *think* they are but no monkey brains with them. So I can't count those.
Any decent size fruit tree wood gets a right honorable mention, for being versatile, both heating (very good) and cooking (excellent) They drop because splitting can sometimes be quite problematic. big wild cherries are OK, but orchard wood though usually sucks to split.
