Over winter I spoted the ugliest looking osage tree off the road 400 yards or so ,twisty trunk when I got close to it there was the stratist grain strait peace Y coming off of it so I cut it with a poll saw and between making other bows it set in the back yard shellacked on the ends tell yesterday I discovered 2 natural checks right where I was going to split any way, so I drove a wedge into the large one and it was the easeist splitting I ever did the same on the other maybe 20 minutes between rain drops and I got 4 nice 86 in. staves like Clint says osage tells you where it wants to split , I will be checking out all ugly osage tree's in the Future !