210 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. [Jan., 



of the village outskirts kept my wife and children fighting fires 

 in the woods for about a fortnight, or until the rains came. Bat 

 the fires grew so frequent as to arouse that side of the country. 

 One day, Em. said, the people of one of our mills were all 

 turned out to help her, and help themselves. A little wearing, 

 a little friction of the elements is pi'oper and even necessary under 

 any civilization. But when it comes to pursuing farmers with 

 floods and fires as in some parts of the State, or with poison as in 

 some others, then we may as well understand that good men of all 

 classes — farmers, manufacturers, or lawyers — will unite against it. 

 There maybe some who will say that things, have been said 

 here which are not v/arranted by the facts, or by the opinions 

 of eminent men and jurists. Please look at "Angell on Water- 

 courses," a Massachusetts law-book, where flowage is said to have 

 begun in colonial times. Began among farmers who wanted grist- 

 mills, and saw-mills. The State of Alabama has pronounced a 

 statute extending the right of eminent domain to machinery 

 and several public utilities, unconstitutional. (See note, p. G68.) 

 Michigan, I believe, still confines the right "to such mills only 

 as are in the habit of grinding for toll." (See p. 680.) Judge 

 Hand of the New York Supreme Court says: "The legislature 

 of this State, it is believed, has never exercised the right 

 of eminent domain in favor of mills of any kind. Sites for 

 :Steam -engines, hotels, churches, and other public conveniences 

 might as well be taken, by the exercise of this extraordinary 

 power." (See p. 662.) 



Chief Justice Parker of Massachusetts, referring to the flowage 

 of his State remarks: " We cannot help thinking, that this statute 

 was incautiously copied from the ancient colonial and provincial 

 acts, which were passed when the use of mills, from the necessity 

 . of them, bore a much greater value, compared to the land used 

 for the purposes of agriculture than at present." 



Whether Judge Parker said this during a period of financial 

 depression when mills were being burned to get the insurance, I 

 have no means of knowing. Certain it is that good judges have 

 looked with suspicion and dislike at the overthrow of common 

 law rights by flowage acts, since their beginning in our legal 

 history. 



It would be a pity, wouldn't it, to transform a good farmer into 

 a middling lawyer or legislator by obliging him to defend himself" 

 with the weapons, of these professions? Every man to his calling, 



