NINTH ANNUAL YEAR BOOK— PART Xll 7S5 
amount is allowed thereon. When a notice is served on you that an 
engineer's report is on file, it will be a mistake if you do not examine 
it. If you find something you do not like it will be a mistake if you do 
not file objections in writing, and a bigger mistake if you get angry 
about it. If the report does not recommend an outlet for you, it will be 
a mistake if you do not ask for one (that is if you want it and are willing 
to pay your share for it.) It is often wise for the engineer to leave 
that question for you to decide. When the petition is filed for the drain- 
age of a special piece of wet land, it would be a mistake if all the land 
dependent on that body for a drainage outlet is not included in the 
district. It will also be a mistake if any land is included in that district 
that is not dependent on that body for a drainage outlet, even though 
it is in the "water shed." When the commissioners classify land and 
assess benefits, it will be a mistake if they judge by results attained 
rather than by the amount of money expended. I believe the supreme 
court will some time decide that benefit to a piece of land is measured 
by the money spent for that piece of land, let the result be greater 
or less as it may be. It is a mistake to make drains too small, and 
also a mistake to make them too large. It is a mistake to force drainage 
upon people against their wish at an unreasonable cost, and also a 
mistake to allow an obstinate man to block the progress of his neigh- 
bors unreasonably. It will be the greatest mistake of all if all are not 
good-natured and friendly with your neighbors and with the engineer 
and the officers. If you all try to help each other you will succeed. 
GOOD COUNTRY ROADS. 
C. C. DYE, LINEVILLE, IOWA. 
(Before Jefferson County Farmers' Institute.) 
To have a good road in any country, in the first place we must have 
drainage. You will all agree with me there. Because a road must be 
kept dry, or it will be soft. 
I have a system of road work, which I have followed for the last five 
or six years, and if you will w^atch me closely I will explain this all to 
you, in giving you my system. We must have a system by which to 
build our roads, or we never can have good roads. 
One year I graded a lot of road from twenty, to twenty-three feet wide, 
and had it in nice shape and expected next year to widen it or the next 
man would; but what did he do. He started about six feet on the outside 
of my ditches and ran the dirt Into my ditches and filled them, and then 
he had a thirty-three to thirty-five foot, flat road. Both his work and 
mine thrown away. 
I know of no better way to give my system of road work than to tell 
how I worked half of a township for three years, then I will tell how I 
fixed and maintained certain pieces of road. 
Five years ago I took one-half of the road work in Jefferson town- 
ship, Wayne county, there being about thirty-six miles of road in very 
bad shape, ditched up, and culverts in very bad shape and only about 
forty poll taxes and $380. to do this work with. 
