246 BOARD OF AGRICULTURE. 



sections of the country, public benefit demands the application 

 of the right of eminent domain. It is not true that in all 

 cases the public is benefited, and although in an earlier stage 

 of the settlement of the country, and before the application ot 

 steam, the balance of benefit to the public may have been in 

 favor of mills, it cannot be asserted that the legislature have 

 any right to apply the unlimited and s\yeeping power of condo- 

 nation allowed by the mill act one step further or one moment 

 longer than the legislature, in the exercise of a wise and 

 constitutional discretion, is satisfied that the public benefit or 

 necessity requires it. 



The supreme court of the State of New York have boasted 

 in the following v/ords, that " The legislature of this State, it is 

 believed, hare 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." The Acts of 

 Tennessee extend only to the condemnation of land for grist 

 mills. 



The question which presents itself, as it appears to your com- 

 mittee, is simply, under existing circumstances, what provision 

 can be enacted by the legislature which shall secure existing 

 rights of the mill-owner, and shall hereafter do full justice to 

 the interests and demands both of the agricultural and tlie 

 manufacturing interests of the Commonwealth. By the laws 

 of Virginia and Kentucky, which have been substantially 

 adopted in the States of Indiana, Missouri, Mississippi, Ala- 

 bama and Florida, and we believe in some other States, it is pro- 

 Tided in substance that when a person desires to erect a mill or 

 other engine of public utility, he shall apply to some court of 

 record, who shall issue a writ to a jury ai)pointed for the pur- 

 pose who have authority to condemn for the mill owner an 

 acre of land on the bank of the other side of the stream, if he 

 do not own on both sides, to appraise the value of the same, to 

 examine what other lands may be overflowed, and assess dam- 

 age, regulate the height of dam and mode of flowagc, and to 

 decide whether tlie public benefit will be enhanced by the 

 estai)lishmcnt of the mill, or whether tlic injury likely to result 

 to the neighborliood by sickness or otherwise, will be greater 

 than the benefit to be derived from the erection of a dam ; and 



