FIFTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK — PART VI. 507 



situated as to have no connection with the sewers." In the case of Oliver 

 V. Monona County, 117 Iowa, 56, the court uses]this language: "If the 

 land in question was properly included in the drainage district, then the 

 owner can not urge by way of objection to the assessments that the particu- 

 lar ditch constructed did not directly add to the value of his land. As was 

 said in Chambliss vs. Johnson, 11 Iowa, 611: 'Lands are benefited by 

 improvements which drain swamps and overflowed lands in the vicinity. 

 The means of access to the lands at all times is a material consideration in 

 determining whether a given tract should be assessed, and the health and 

 welfare of the public in the vicinity are proper subjects of inquiry in fixing 

 the boundaries of the territory benefited by the improvement. Indeed we 

 think that if the adjacent highlands, which were not all affected by direct 

 overflow, were benefited by the improvement of means of access by roads, 

 and by the reclaiming of the low wet lands in the vicinity, they might be 

 assessed in the amount of their proper and just proportion of the cost 

 of the improvement.' If Oliver thought that his land was iihproperly 

 included within the district proposed to be benefited by the contemplated 

 improvements, he should have raised the question when the district was 

 created." Again, if upon the hearing upon the assessments for benefits one 

 was allowed to show that his lands were not benefited', and the supervisors 

 should so find, the drainage districts would be torn into shreds and patches. 

 Once show and adjudicate that the land is not benefited, and such land ceases 

 to be a part of the drainage district, the district ceases to be the district 

 created by the order of establishment and the adjudication establishing the 

 district counts for nothing. The drainage act proceeds upon the theory 

 that certain things must be done in a given order and that when so done 

 they are fixed and permanent and serve as a basis for what comes after. 

 While, therefore, it is not competent to show that a tract of land is not bene- 

 fited, it is competent to show that the benefit is trifling. Under the scale of 

 one hundred which has been adopted in the drainage act, it would be possi- 

 ble to asses the benefit to one piece of land as compared with the benefit to 

 another in the ratio one hundred to one, and, in this way, substantial justice 

 may be had. It is provided that an appeal may be taken to the district 

 court from the order fixing the assessments for benefits within like time and 

 in like manner as in appeals from assessment of damages. 



The result of the numerous appeals from the hearing before the super- 

 visors will sometimes, no doubt, reduce the aggregate of the assessment be- 

 low the cost of the improvement, It is, therefore, provided in the act that 

 if the first assessment shall be insufficient, the board may make an addi- 

 tional assessment and levy in thesarre ratio as the first. 



In many cases, on the establishment of the drainage district, only a few 

 of the laterals which will be ultimately needed will at first be constructed 

 and, long afterwards, others will be constructed involving additional cost 

 and expense. In section 13 it is, therefore, provided that in estimating the 

 benefits as to the lands not traversed by the improvement, the commission- 

 ers shall not consider what benefits the land will receive, after some other 

 improvements shall have been made, but only the benefits which will be re- 

 ceived by reason of the construction of the improvement in question, as it 

 affords an outlet for the drainage of such lands. In Beats vs. James (Mass.) 

 54 N. E. R., 245, it is said, "The benefits arising from the right to use a 



