The use of the Band Mill in place of Circulars and Gangs became very desirable for two important reasons; one of them was that the saw kerf of a band saw is so much less than that of a circular saw that the saving in sawdust yielded a greater quantity of lumber from the logs, thus accomplishing a clear saving of valuable material. The other reason was that while Gangs made perfectly sawed lumber, they produced a great deal of cullen stock from rough or unsound logs, for as the saws are hung in the sash so must the lumber come out, and there is no way of varying the thicknesses to accommodate the quality of the stock. While a Band Mill will not cut so much lumber in a day as a Gang, it is a machine with which a log can be sawed to the best advantage, and that with a saw as thin as a gang saw. So that if the lumber coming from a Gang and often rated as cull, could have been sawed into piece or thick stuff, it would make it valuable and marketable. This made the Band Mill attractive, and lumbermen began to take an interest in it and to investigate the operations of those known to exist. The result of their inspections, however, was far from being satisfactory, because none of them were doing good work or anywhere near enough of it, and with exceedingly few exceptions the mill men rejected them and regarded them as an impracticable machine for sawing logs, and few dealers would buy lumber that was cut with a band saw. Mr. L. L. Hotchkiss who operated a mill in West Bay City, Mich., and was very desirous of saving as much of his logs as he could, told the writer that the men to whom he sold his lumber had refused to buy any of it if he cut it with a Band Mill. A prominent lumberman of Minneapolis also told the writer that he would not take a Band Mill as a gift and be obliged to put it in and use it. And that was the prevailing view among mill men of the northwest generally in 1886. Band Mills that would satisfy the lumber manufacturers of Indiana and the valley of the Ohio where they were to be found, could never meet the requirements of the men of Michigan, Wisconsin, Minnesota and the Mississippi Valley as far south as St. Louis. Now what was the trouble? It was simply because a band saw if forced to do a satisfactory day’s work, invariably would cut snakey or crooked lumber; and even when sawing a small amount of lumber each end of a board would have a crook, showing that the saw for some reason would deflect from a true line when entering a log and also when leaving it, while the cut through the center might be quite straight; but in all cases the effort to push things so as to get a satisfactory day’s work as demanded by the northern mill men, would result in bad snakey lumber every time, and dealers did not want such lumber.