t us give some of the considerations on which it
rests:

1. Improved agriculture is an element in civilization.

2. Drainage belongs to good agriculture, is extensively practiced and
must often precede the plow.

3. The surplus water can not be stored or annihilated, and the course of
drainage is indicated, in most places determined by nature, in the
drainage depressions which are nature's outlets.

4. The law of gravity, with or without man's work, is constant and
active in moving the waters to the lower level. The ditcher's art is to
remove the obstacles to a freer flow.

5. Excessive water is a foe to agriculture; and for the general good it
should be collected into channels, and as speedily as possible passed
along on its inevitable journey.

OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.--It is said to be a universal law maxim, "that you
may use your own as you will, but not to the detriment of your
neighbor," and that this principle forbids this kind of drainage. This
maxim may be general, but it is not universal. My neighbor may have
built his house and other domestic arrangements in the lee of a natural
grove of timber on my land. The removal of this grove may be a real
grievance by giving the wind too free a sweep; yet my right to change
this waste into a grain field will not be questioned. My warranty deed
is my right thus to improve my land, though it be "to the detriment of
my neighbor." He should have foreseen the contingency of a removal of
these woods. On like principles a land owner may remove an excess of
water so as to raise corn and not rushes. In the removal of woods my
neighbor may not have an immediate remedy for his ills, but the effect
of my ditches may be turned to good account by continuing them, and thus
improving his land as I have mine. My warranty deed is my right to
cultivate my own land, and this right carries the right to cultivate it
in the best manner. The lower man should have taken judicial notice that
water runs down hill, and that in this progressive age ditches may be
cut and tiles laid.

But it is said that this court decision follows the English Common law;
and now being settled by a decision, it is not open for further
consideration. In this progressive age nothing is settled until it is
settled right. Judge Taney once judicially settled the status of the
African race. The common law was held to forbid the bridging of
navigable streams. Harbors could only be made where the water was salt
and af