406 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



receives in its devious and winding way many little accessions, 

 when it rans in a course chiefly north-eas.t, through North- 

 borough, Berlin, Marlborough and Stow, along the line 

 of Sudbury, aud across a corner of Acton, into Concord, 

 where it joins the Sudbury near the village of Concord ; and 

 below that point the united waters of these two smaller 

 streams constitute the Concord River, which flows a little 

 east of north through Concord, along the line between Carl- 

 isle and Bedford, into Billerica, and to the dam at North 

 Billerica, from which point it continues northerly till it joins 

 the Merrimac. 



The Assabet differs essentially from the Sudbury and the 

 Concord. Its banks are generally higher and its current 

 more rapid. The Sudbury River, at Wayland and Sudbury, 

 forms a great expanse, and the meadows over which it flows 

 are now water-logged, or wet throughout the season. Four 

 thousand acres are thus rendered worthless for cultivation, 

 being generally overflowed. 



It will readily be seen that the Sudbury and the Concord 

 form essentially one and the same river, and one of the most 

 sluggish in the world, falling only about an inch in a mile, 

 for the space of more than twenty-two miles. The bed of 

 the river for twenty-five miles above the dam at Billerica, 

 rises at no point to a level with the top of the dam. It is 

 clear that in such a river the legislature ought never to have 

 granted the right to flow by the erection of a dam which 

 should set so large a body of water back to flood so many 

 valuable acres, and to destroy the health and the lives of so 

 large and loyal a part of our population. Nor is it probable 

 that it ever intended to grant such a right, to interfere with 

 the vested rights of private property on so large a scale. Let 

 us see how it happened. 



As early as 1793 the legislature incorporated the Middlesex 

 Canal Company, " for the purpose of cutting a canal from the 

 waters of the Merrimack River, into the waters of the Med- 

 ford River, with all the powers and privileges incident to simi- 

 lar corporations. " At that time it was understood that the 

 water for the canal was to be taken from the Merrimac, and 

 not from the Concord, as the sole feeder, or indeed as any 

 feeder. In 1795 power was granted to dig a canal to connect 



