What do stump carvers use to prevent severe splitting?

You might ask the city of Galveston, Tx for after a big hurricane down there one year, all that was left in that big city was big stumps left all over town and instead of having them removed they contacted someone in the tree carving world? And those guys chained sawed everything that was still standing into beautiful things. We haven't been back there since this happened but I've seen lots of pictures and I bet it made all the people of their city very proud of how things look now.

 

There is also a town in Colo. with all their trees carved.  

Ron if you haven't been through that town In Colo You aught to drive to it . Its interesting. We were leaving from Gunnison going east and I think it was the next town or two. Don't remember the name.  We stayed in a motel across the street from a good sized park and there were lots of carved trees. Don't remember if that was in the rest of the town like Galveston is!

Ron, 

sorry for the wrong town in Colo that has carved trees in their city park and it happens to be Craig, Colo.  Look up, carved trees in craig. colo   lots of mighty fine carving.  They have a brass plate on each tree telling when each tree was carved and I think by who.      Maybe 30 trees or more!