SECRETARY'S REPORT. 249 



Tlierc arc numerous cases, within our own knowlcdgflU where the very 

 land overflowed and ruined by some incorpoi'ated company, would, if 

 allowed to produce its natural growth of timber and wood, furnish ten 

 times the fuel necessary to supply steam-engines, to propel the machin- 

 ery carried by the water-power. 



Not satisfied with obstructing the streams in their course, the larger 

 companies are, of late, making use of the interior lakes, fifty or a hun- 

 dred miles inland, as reservoirs, to keep back water for the use of the 

 mills in the summer droughts. Thus are thousands of acres of land 

 drowned, and rendered worse than useless ; for the water is kept up till 

 midsummer, and draM'n off when a dog-day climate is just ready to 

 convert the rich and slimy sediment of the pond into pestilential vapors. 

 These waters, too, controlled by the mill-owners, are thus let down in 

 floods, in midsummer, to overflow the meadows and corn-fields of the 

 farmer, or the intervals and bottom-lands below. 



Kow, w'hile we would never advocate any attack upon the rights of 

 mill-owners, or ask them to sacrifice their interests to those of agricul- 

 ture, it surely is proper to call attention to the injury which the produc- 

 tive capacity of the soil is suffering by the flooding of our best tracts, in 

 sections of country where land is most valuable? Could not mill- 

 owners, in many instances, adopt steam instead of water-power, and 

 becoming land-dratmnff companies, instead of \and-drowfiing companies ; 

 at least, let nature have free course with her gently-flowing rivers, and 

 allow the promise to be fulfilled, that the earth shall be no more cursed 

 with a flood. 



We would ask for the land-owner, simply equality of rights with the 

 mill-owner. If a legislature may grant the right to flow lands, against 

 the will of the owner, to promote manufactures, the same legislature 

 may surely grant the right, upon proper occasion, to remove dams and 

 other obstructions to our streams, to promote agriculture. The rights 

 of mill-owners are no more sacred than those of land-owners ; and the 

 interests of manufactures are, surely, no more important than those 

 of agriculture. 



"VVe would not advocate much interference with private rights. In 

 some of the States, no special privileges have been conferred upon 

 water-power companies. They have been left to procure their rights of 

 flowage, by private contract with the land-owners ; and in such States, 

 probably, the legislatures would be as slow to interfere with rights 

 of flowage, as with other rights. Yet, there are cases where, for the 

 preservation of the health of the community, and for the general conve- 

 nience, governments have everywhere exercised the power of interfering 

 with private property, and limiting the control of the owners. To 

 preserve the public health, we abate as nuisances, by processes of law, 



