American Elm or "Ulmus Americana" can be difficult to split when fresh cut live or its not been dead for too long. Over the years I've cut and split many full cords of it, some being up to 36" diameter. Not all of it is gnarly twisted grain, much of it is or in between. The straight grain wood is easier to deal with for sure.
The twisted grain wood does not split cleanly, you can make a pile of stringy, broken up pieces which in my opinion is useless for decent fire wood.
2 things stand out to me to make it easier.
1.) Let the blocks dry out, how long depends, the longer the better, but if it has to be split on short notice, line up the best checking you can find on the end, either end, no matter what way it grows, does not matter. I often reverse the block/log and line up these check marks to get a decent split. I have cords of blocks waiting to be split, bucked since mid fall of '14, these will be so much easier to deal with having dried first, but I have a lot more elm logs to haul in, just can't stop this dutch elm, its destroying a 30 year growth of all elm around here for the most part, shameful as these trees are beautiful, I'd prefer to let them grow, but have cut all the dead and dying ones I can to get them away from healthy ones.
2.)If its difficult wood, noticeably different than other blocks or trees I've cut, its better to then just split 2" planks off the outside, keep splitting around the outside until you know that center piece won't stack if split, as sometimes its just best to leave it or it just makes a mess of it.
If its crotch wood, I split this crotch first, you can see the wine glass like shape in the grain once halved, it just seems to work easier and that goes the opposite way of its growth.
Elm is time consuming to process, there is no doubt, you can make a mess of it easily, but I find its well worth doing as it does burn like Oak, just does not give you the same coal bed, however with plenty of it on hand, the fact that it does grow fast, its a viable source of firewood in these parts as I see things.
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Today's Featured Article - Talk of the Town: The Saga of Grandpa's Tractor - by The following saga is from the Tractor Talk Discussion Forum. Someone. The saga starts with the following message: Hey guys I have a decision to make. I know what you all will probably suggest and it will probably agree with me way down inside, but here it is. I have a picture blown up and framed in my "tractor room" of a Farmall M. It was my Grandpa's tractor, of which whom I never got to meet. He froze to death getting this tractor out of the barn to pull a truck out of the ditch before I was born. Anyway my dad and aunt had to sell it at the auction,
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