I typically wouldn’t go out of my way for box elder. My cousin cut one down and asked me if I wanted it. Hard to say no to wood I can back the trailer up to. A bunch of odd lengths but it will be good for camping/shoulder season wood.
Most of us call Box Elder Manitoba Maple. It's good in this neck of the woods if you can cut it green and dry it under a roof for 2 summers. Most of it's dead and I'll burn it if I have to cut it and get it out of the way.
It's been a long time since we've burned any box elder here; my guess is about 35 years or so, give or take. The last time I got some was when my FIL wanted some box elder taken down that was right next to the cow barn and was starting to do some damage to the foundation. It burned okay but all got burned either in fall or spring. I won't go out of my way for the stuff.
I have a fair amount of Box Elder that I've taken done on the farm to clear pasture area. Good for shoulder and camp fire wood. For some reason it's a pain in the ... To split! Sometimes I think I burn more energy spitting than I get back from burning it. If it wasn't so hard to split I would like it a lot more.
Yeah, it's not an easy maple to split. It gets kinda gnarly too, but it burns great, and around here it's ready to burn after one summer after split and stacked.
That's where I draw the line as well. If it was my tree, and I had to clean it up, then I'd turn it into campfire wood. At most.
Not a big fan of it but hey it's shoulder season wood. That trailer load could fool me for Norway Maple though.
