Minecraft wiki entry for Survival_in_an_infinite_desert, associated text: Even if you get a furnace, the supply of fuel for the furnace is extremely limited. You only have dead bushes, whether collected whole or broken into sticks, and these are non-renewable in a desert biome. Once you have broken or collected all the dead bushes in an area, you get no more fuel. And it takes a lot of sticks to power a furnace even for a short time. So you should conserve all your sticks for the most critical operations, bearing in mind you also need sticks to craft tools and weapons if you ever manage to obtain cobblestone or iron (sometimes gained from mob drops). While it may be tempting to trade sticks to a fletcher villager for emeralds, consider carefully whether this is your best course of action.