"Toledo has not two years' supply of gas," the circular said, "in all the territory acquired." The State Geologist, in his annual report for 1890, said that Toledo would have no gas to supply its pipe lines or citizens in 1891. In 1892 the city pipe line supplied gas to the value of $168,954.46. Three years have passed, Toledo wells still flow, and new ones are being found continually. "Whatever may have been his object," say the city gas trustees, "in volunteering such a statement, we know that so far in 1891 it is untrue, and that such positive declarations, based upon hypothetical conditions, are utterly unworthy of scientific pretensions."[528] The State Geologist also took part in his annual report in the debate between municipal control and private enterprise, siding altogether with the latter. The quantity of gas land owned by the city was put by the circular at 300 to 500 acres. The city had 650 acres. The circular declared the life of an ordinary well to be one to three years. There is no such limit. Referring to the quantity of gas land the city had, the circular asked and answered: "Cannot other territory be acquired? "Not in Northwestern Ohio, and not nearer than the gas fields of Indiana." This was untrue, for the gas trustees had already been offered, as stated, several thousands of acres of the best gas lands in addition to those they had bought. But the authors of the circular did their best to make it true. The city's natural-gas trustees say in their report for 1890: "As soon as the trustees were prepared to negotiate for gas wells and gas territory, the field swarmed with emissaries and agents of the Northwestern Ohio Natural Gas Company to compete with the trustees. In order to prove what had been previously stated, 'that Toledo could procure no gas territory,' no means were left untried; agents of that company even fraudulently represented themselves to the owners of gas property that they were connected with the gas trustees and working in their interest, and in some instances introducing themselves as the president of this board. Prices went up 1000 per cent. in some instances rather than let it fall into the hands of the trustees. A conspicuous officer of that company, as an excuse for paying an enormous sum of money for a gas well, is reported as saying, 'We did not want the gas well, but we had to buy it in order to keep Toledo from getting hold of it.'"[529]