136 



NEW ENGLAND FARMEE. 



March 



selves in committee room for the transaction of 

 such special business as devolved upon them. — 

 Maine Farmer. 



For the New England Farmer. 



LBGISLATION-LAND DKAINAGB 

 COMPAKIES. 



BY H. F. FRENCH, EXETER, N. H. 



How far it may be competent for a State Leg- 

 islature to provide for or assist in the drainage 

 of extensive or unhealthy marshes, or how far 

 individual owners should be compelled to con- 

 tribute to a common improvement of their lands, 

 or how far, and in what cases one land-owner 

 should be authorized to enter upon land of an- 

 other, to secure or maintain the best use of his 

 own land, these are questions which it is unnec- 

 essary for us to attempt to determine. It is well 

 that they should be suggested, because they Avill, 

 at no distant day, engage much attention. It is 

 well, too, that the steps which conservative Eng- 

 land has thought it proper to take in this direc- 

 tion, should be understood, that we may be bet- 

 ter determined whether any, and if any, what 

 course our States may safely take, to aid the 

 great and leading interests of our country. 



The swamps and stagnant meadows along our 

 small streams and our rivers, which are taken 

 from the farmer by flowage, for the benefit of 

 mills, are often, in New England, the most fertile 

 part of the townships, equal to the bottom lands 

 of the West ; and they are right by the doors of 

 young men who leave their home with regret, be- 

 cause the rich land of far-off new States offers 

 temptations which their native soil cannot pre- 

 sent. 



It is certainly of great importance to the old 

 States to inquire into these matters, and set pro- 

 per bounds to the use of streams for water pow- 

 er. The associated weahh and influence of man- 

 ufacturers is always more powerful than the in- 

 dividual efforts of the land owners. 



Reservoirs are always growing larger, and 

 dams continually grow higher and tighter. The 

 water by little and little creeps insiduously on to 

 and into the meadows far above the obstruction, 

 and the land-owner must often elect between sub- 

 mission to this aggress'.on, or a tedious law-suit 

 with a powerful adversary. 



The evil of obstructions to streams and rivers, 

 is by no means limited to the land visibly flowed, 

 nor to land at the level of the dam. Running 

 water is never level, or it could not flow, and in 

 crooked streams which flow through meadows ob- 

 structed by grass and bushes, the water raised by 

 a dam often stands many feet higher at a mile or 

 two back, than at the dam. It is extremely diffi- 

 cult to set limits to the effect of such a flowage. 

 Water is flowed into the subsoil, or rather is pre- 



vented from running out. The natural drainage 

 of the country is obstructed, and land which 

 might well be drained, artificially, were the stream 

 not obstructed, is found to lie so near the level, 

 as to be deprived of the requisite fall, by back- 

 water, or the sluggish current, occasioned by the 

 dam. 



These obstructions to drainage have become 

 subjects of much attention, and of legislative in- 

 tervention in various forms in England, and some 

 of the facts elicited in their investigations are 

 very instructive. 



In a discussion before the Society of Arts, in 

 1855, in which many gentlemen experienced in 

 drainage took a part, the subject of obstruction 

 by mill-dams came up. 



Mr. G. Donaldson said he had been much en- 

 gaged in works of land-drainage and that in 

 many instances great difficulties were experienced 

 in obtaining outfalls, owing to the water-rights 

 on the course of rivers for mill-power. 



Mr. R. Grantham spoke of the necessity of 

 further legislation, "so as to give power to lower 

 bridges and culverts under public roads, straight- 

 en and deepen rivers and streams ;" but he said 

 authority was wanting, above all, "for the remo- 

 val of mills, dams and other obstructions in riv- 

 ers, which in many cases did incalculable injury, 

 many times exceeding the value of the mills, by 

 keeping up the level of rivers, and rendering it 

 totally impossible to drain the adjoining lands." 



Mr. R. II. Davis said if they were to go into 

 the midland districts, they would see great injury 

 done, from draining the water for mills. 



In Scotland the same difficulty has arisen. 

 "In many parts of this country," says a Scottish 

 writer, "small lochs (lakes) and dams are kept 

 up for the sake of mills, under old terraces, which 

 if drained, the land gained by that operation 

 would, in many instances, be worth ten times the 

 rent of such mills." 



The river Nene, running a sinuous course of 

 sixty miles from Northampton to Peterborough, 

 possesses a natural fall of 3j feet per mile. This 

 is held up in levels throughout, by no less than 

 thirty-three water mills for grinding flour, and 

 thirty-four lochs and el'^^en staunches, some for 

 the mills and some for the purposes of naviga- 

 tion, the natural fall being 177 feet and the ag- 

 gregate heads of the lochs and staunches 163^ 

 feet. This occasions the water at the dry weath- 

 er level to be higher than the adjacent meadows 

 for about one-third the length of the valley, but 

 the full-water level stands above the adjacent 

 meadows for three fourths of the length of the 

 valley. 



So long ago as 1633, a commission sat to in- 

 quire into the best mode of redressing the abuses 

 causing such damage to the lands on the Nene, 



