Wood is the very heart that gives life to all wood burning fireplaces and wood burning stoves. Without wood, these two will not be able to serve their vested purposes. Therefore, if you have any of these two inside your home, you may be a home owner who regularly looks for sources of wood that are cheap and obtained in the responsible way.
The attribute that you should look for in wood to make your wood burning fireplaces and wood burning stoves run efficiently is the moisture content. What you should want is to have a wood pile of dry wood with the least moisture content possible. The reason for this is that the higher the moisture content of wood the more difficult it will be to let it burn for so long. Though moist wood will light up, it will not take long enough until it dies down because the water it contains will extinguish the fire. Also, moist wood tends to produce more smoke which is a property of flame that you would want to minimize.
If you are collecting your own wood, you can dry them in ambient temperature under the sun. Branches that have fallen from trees are more likely to be dried out on their own compared with freshly cut trunks. So if you are out in the woods looking for fuel for your wood burning fireplaces and wood burning stoves you should prefer picking up fallen branches that cutting down new ones. Aside from that, it is more responsible of you in putting consideration of the environment regarding your search for replenishing your wood pile.