Something Stinks Around Here

[maual8pounder]

I Have some nice wood park manager gave us. Only one problem it stink's like SHEET... IF you lay a cut round on the ground and look strait down at it looks like a circular saw blade, meaning the bark as the teeth sticking out and it has a very distinct dark brown center. IT looks like shag bark hickory. Not sure but stinks very bad. Any Ideas what kind it is,not set up to send pic's THANK'S

 

[PA. Woodsman]

It could be Hickory

It very well could be Hickory; I've had it where it smells so much like manure that flies are attracted to the freshly split wood. But this wears off, and you don't notice it at all when it's dry.

 

[ericjeeper]

could be waht we refer to as

Piss Elm.. hard as a rock when dry and very heavy

 

[Locoweed]

Had some Mesquite that had grown around a run off pond from a dairy farm and when it burned it smelled like cow manure.

 

[Mkarlson]

I know about piss elm. I'm not sure its a species or a condition but my uncle had a 40 acre wood lot we hunted and I swear every other tree was a standing dead elm bark falling off everyone. I assume there were victim of dutch elm disease or something similiar. This was back before I ever considered splitting firewood for profit I only cut couple cords a year for campfire wood. Anyway I thought it would be smart to cut all that dead wood up in 3-4 foot pieces so I could have one of those fires that we all stand around fires and talk about. So I cut and split with wedges enough wood for couple hundred large camp fires and I didnt even put a dent into the supply of wood.

At the campground it was one of those nights in Indiana where there air isnt moving humidity near 100%, the kind of evening where smells just kinda seem to hang between bout 2-6 feet off the ground. Fire starts to cooking and I am feeling really proud of the cord or so of wood I brought with me for 3 nights of camping and BAM! The smell was horrible...was like someone pissed all over my fire. We never put another log of that stuff on the fire. Ended up giving all that wood away to a guy with woodstove and he was a very happy man. But I did get my wish. Years later while standing around a campfire someone will say you remember when that guy across the way put a pickup load of piss elm in his firepit and stunk the whole campground out! Of course I say " What kind of moron would do something like that"

I dont know what causes it but I'm leary to this day about cutting dead dry elms.

 

[ericjeeper]

I love P Elm for firewood.

Not wanting to split any of it green with a maul though

 

[PA. Woodsman]

I Have some nice wood park manager gave us. Only one problem it stink's like SHEET... IF you lay a cut round on the ground and look strait down at it looks like a circular saw blade, meaning the bark as the teeth sticking out and it has a very distinct dark brown center. IT looks like shag bark hickory. Not sure but stinks very bad. Any Ideas what kind it is,not set up to send pic's THANK'S

If it's Shagbark Hickory, there should be pieces of the bark that are "peeling" off of it; you can grab the loose end and break a section of the bark off. And Hickory is HEAVY-VERY heavy. And it will be a bit "stringy" when you split it.