Black Ash (Fraxinus nigra) 2nd year seedlings, 18 to 36 inches tall, bare root.
Black Ash is a narrow-growing tree with chunky textured bark, producing strong flexible wood used for tools, basketry, wooden boats, baseball bats, and it also makes the best firewood, as per Celia Congreve's The Firewood Poem from 1930:
Beechwood fires are bright and clear
If the logs are kept a year,
Chestnut's only good they say,
If for logs 'tis laid away.
Make a fire of Elder tree,
Death within your house will be;
But ash new or ash old,
Is fit for a queen with crown of gold
Birch and fir logs burn too fast
Blaze up bright and do not last,
it is by the Irish said
Hawthorn bakes the sweetest bread.
Elm wood burns like churchyard mould,
E'en the very flames are cold
But ash green or ash brown
Is fit for a queen with golden crown
Poplar gives a bitter smoke,
Fills your eyes and makes you choke,
Apple wood will scent your room
Pear wood smells like flowers in bloom
Oaken logs, if dry and old
keep away the winter's cold
But ash wet or ash dry
a king shall warm his slippers by.
Photos:
Rob Routledge, Professor, Sault College Natural Environment & Outdoor Studies, Bugwood.org, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons
Herman, D.E., et al. 1996. North Dakota tree handbook. USDA NRCS ND State Soil Conservation Committee; NDSU Extension and Western Area Power Administration, Bismarck. Courtesy of ND State Soil Conservation Committee. Provided by USDA NRCS ND State Office. United States, ND., Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons
Uyvsdi, CC BY 3.0 <https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0>, via Wikimedia Commons