"Shawn" > wrote in message
ster.com...
> TFM® wrote:
>>
>>
>> "Nonnymus" > wrote in message
>> ...
>>> TFM® wrote:
>>>
>>>> Speaking of hard hardwood, I got ahold of a big chunk of an orange tree
>>>> a week or so ago. It was a 6" limb about 8" long.
>>>> I started with my hatchet. What a joke that was.
>>>> Then I fired up the chainsaw - hot-rod chainsaw with a brand new
>>>> chain - I might as well have been cutting stone. Damn, that's some
>>>> hard wood!
>>>>
>>>
>>> I've never smoked with citrus wood, so I cannot say what the results
>>> would be like. However, I have two citrus bushes in the back yard and
>>> must admit I sure admire the strength of the branches. One Meyer Lemon
>>> bush is about 5' in diameter and yielded just over 120 very large lemons
>>> last year. The weight was enough to have flattened any other bush I've
>>> encountered, but the Meyer Lemon bush might have a pencil-sized branch
>>> with 3-4 lemons on it, 2' away from a bigger branch.
>>>
>>> In MO, we had a lot of what was called Hedge or Hedge Apple trees. They
>>> were a popular fence row in and of themselves, and cut off branches
>>> would make great fence posts for in between the trees. I believe the
>>> correct name for them is Osage Orange- could that be what you're
>>> describing. If so, the wood is incredibly hard. In fact, it's
>>> virtually impossible to staple fence wire to one unless you drive the
>>> staple into a crack or split. The Hedge Apples have no commercial use
>>> I'm aware of, but hogs sure love them.
>>
>>
>> I don't recall seeing the hedge apple down here. We had a bunch in Tn.
>> The fruit looks like a brain.
>> What I got was a piece of orange tree stump.
>>
>> TFM®
>
>
> I believe they are called bois 'd arc down here. Often pronounced
> bo-dark, the scientific name is Maclura pomifera.
>
> http://lancaster.unl.edu/hort/Articl...dgeapple.shtml
>
> I have seen fence posts that were a documented 100 years old, as sound as
> the day they went in the ground.
>
> A trick in this part of Texas 150 years ago was to cut off a grove of them
> at about 18 inches, and use them as piers to build a house on. Still the
> only houses in these parts to never have foundation problems.
I will take a digital picture of said orange limb and Tiny - pic it.
In the meantime, let's not fight about what it is or isn't.
TFM® - It's wood, it's good.