Just had a thought on Argofan's question. Someone please tell me if my logic is flawed here...

End seal or no end seal, whether you "leave it in the log" or cut it into posts, it seems to me that your timber is going to check along its entire length.

If you cut your posts and let them season as posts, you will have gained the 1" boards that result from cutting the log into a post. You can set these 1" boards aside and let them dry as well. (They call these boards "tie siding" around here, since they are viewed as a by-product of making cross ties.)

If you wait until the whole log checks before sawing, then when you go to cutting your "siding" boards from the log, they will tend to have splits down their entire length, would they not?

Does this sound right, or is there a theory that the whole logs will not check and a few years later you can cut pristine boards and timbers from them?