"Do I understand you that they have not sought in any way to make the operations of refineries outside the trust so unprofitable that parties would either come into the trust or have to abandon the business--has anything of that sort been done?" "They have not; no, sir, they have not," was the triple negative of the president. "They" (the trustees) "have lived on good terms with what I may call their competitors?" "They have; and have to-day very pleasant relations with those gentlemen." "So far as you know," he was asked, "the product of the crude oil and the manufacture and sale of the refined oil has been absolutely left to the ordinary rules of supply and demand, has it not?" "It has."[453] In the winter of 1873 a young farmer living among the blue hills of Wyoming, in western New York, where he had been born and bred, was asked by a stranger from Rochester to help him in a search for oil lands. The old-fashioned quiet of the little community was agitated by the hope that the milk and honey of their valleys might be replaced by a more precious flow. The stranger and his son were prosperous oil refiners, but a little cloud, about the size of a "trustee's" hand, had crept into their sunshine. As they set about drilling a well on some "likely-looking" land they had leased, the stranger told the farmer why he was so anxious to strike oil for his own exclusive use. The reader is better prepared to understand his explanation than the then inexperienced agriculturist to whom he gave his confidence. It had begun to be difficult for him to get a full and regular supply of the crude petroleum for his works. There were restrictions, he said, about the shipments.[454] What that meant the young farmer was to learn for himself.