I've split a couple hundred or more cords of wood by hand (sold it in my younger days) and I never noticed much difference between green, dry, warm or frozen wood. It depends mainly on the species, the grain of the particular tree and the particular piece. The pine and oak will likely split relatively easily - elm is soft and stringy. You will need wedges for the elm and the uglier pieces of pine and oak. I copied the advice below from a post I made on the Tractor Talk forum a while back. Splitting good wood by hand can be faster than splitting with a hydraulic splitter. Good luck and enjoy.

This is a follow-up of sorts to a thread that went through here a few days ago re: splitting wood by hand.
I sold firewood through college and grad school, and I have guessimated that I have split about 500 cords by hand.

It occurred to me a few years ago that when you have good or decent splitting wood the most work, and worst on your back is bending over to pick up the pieces that go asunder after most splits. Now I stand several pieces in a circle (3 or 4 in the center, surrounded by 5 - 8 depending on size) and binding them together with a length of rope wrapped around the "stand" and tied with a cinch knot. As you split the wood pieces stay up on end, no bending over, no time waste and you go through those pieces in no time.

When splitting interior pieces you need to lift up sharply on the maul handle just as the maul makes the split to avoid breaking the handle, but it is easy with a little practice. This is a great way to make kindling too. It is satifying to whack away at a few pieces of wood for 5 - 10 minutes and have half of the kindling you need for the year.

As far as my tool of choice, I only like a 7 pound maul. I have tried 6 and 8 pounders, and those giant wedge "bombs" but they are just a bit too light, a bit too heavy, and way too heavy respectivly. I also like Oregon brand or equivalent. This is just a simple "maul shape" and a wood handle. Don't go for the cross between and axe and a maul where the wedge side has a few inches of a straight blade shape before expanding into the wedge. This just gets stuck in the wood.

I now have a nice haudraulic splitter with a 2 stage pump, but I sometimes still split by hand. When you have good splitting wood, the method I described above is faster and I enjoy it more.

Follow Ups:

Re: splitting logs Lanced 15:05:24 10/13/05 (1)
- Re: splitting logs Tim B from MA 06:40:09 10/14/05 (0)
Re: splitting logs fepo 13:01:07 10/12/05 (0)

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