What kind of wood is best?

What will they be used for?

Coon drowners

Around here there is plenty of old tobacco sticks to be found. They seem to work great. Just drill a hole in one end. Most of them are Oak , but a few hickory ones can be found.

Oak, hickory or locust

I got tons of white oak stakes, been using them for kindling.

I used maple trees. They grow straight in the shade. Small enough to get one post per tree.

Make sure you sink them in the mud. Might be OK on the deep end but I'd use rebar on the shallow end. Learned that the hard way.

Hey possum catcher, we make a bunch of them in early summer. We go to local brush dump and cut them from maple or other straight limbs still fresh and green not yet dried. Cut them however long you want them but for us a little longer was always better. We make a bunch of short ones too for bank end of a drowner or for post sets too.
Then sharpen one end and have other end cut flat and clean. You can sharpen green limbs easily with a good knife. If the dry a little they get too hard to cut with a knife so use a good grinder or wood rasp to sharpen them. You can drill holes in the to attach wire at various depths too.
Then put them all in a bucket and keep them in a dry shed or garage all rest of hot summer and fall. The will get hard as iron by season start and you can drive them into any soil in November with a hammer. By January our soil is too frozen so you have to make a pilot hole first with rebar or a super stake driver then you can pound in a dry wood stake.
We have been making these for free for years this way. Any local tree works but maple, Willow, and some dogwoods were always straightest limb material for us and easiest to work with.
Jim