IRRIGATION. 187 



as this was mere surface water ; and the defendant had a right to drain 

 his land, and the pLaiutiff could not insist upon the defendant main- 

 taining his fields as a mere water-table. With respect to the third 

 point, the plaintiff is entitled to retain his verdict." And per 3Iartm 

 B. : " The proprietor of the soil has in-ima facie the right to drain his 

 land ; and unless there is some express authority to show that his 

 motive in so doing affected the question, in my opinion the motive is 

 altogether immaterial." 



In some of its points, Broadlent v. Eamsdofham was wholly undis- 

 tingnishable from, and governed by the Exchequer decision in the 

 above case. It was here decided that a lamlowner has a right to ap- 

 2yrop-iate surface ivater ivhich flows over his land in no definite channel, 

 although the water is thereby prevented from reaching a watercourse 

 which it previously supplied. Therefore where the plaintiff's mill for 

 more than fifty years had been worked by the stream of a brook which 

 was supplied by the water of a pond filled with rain, a shallow well 

 supplied by subterraneous water, a swamp, and a well formed by a stream 

 springing out of the side of a hill, the waters of all of which occasion- 

 ally overflowed and ran down the defendant's land in no definite 

 channel into the brook, the plaintiff had no right as against the de- 

 fendant to the natural flow of any of the waters. The disputed water 

 in that part of the case, to which the reasoning in Ran-stron v. Taylor 

 especially applied, was only the overflow of a well, which ran into a 

 ditch (the lowest adjoining ground) made artificially, and for a dif- 

 ferent purpose, running beside a hedge. . After that it was squandered 

 over a swamp made by the feet of cattle treading about ; and not 

 till long after this, what still remained of it found its way, with 

 other water, into what might then be called a definite natural water- 

 course. 



Irrigation is a riparian right, to ho exercised sulject to the rights of 

 other riparian j^ropriefors. The riparian proprietor above might, no 

 doubt, by grant, divest himself of his right to use the stream for the 

 purpose of irrigation; but the mere non-user of the right would not 

 raise a presumption of a grant. Per Willes J. {Sampson v. Hoddinott) : 

 "Where there is an undue detention of ivater hy the riparian "proprietor 

 above, it is not necessary in an action to show actual damage to the 

 plaintiff's reversionary interest ; it is enough to show an obstruction of 

 his right ; and such obstruction of his right being shown, the law will 

 infer damage {ih.). The right of the riparian propi'ietor is, hoivever, 

 limited to natural streams, and does not attach in the case of artificial cuts 

 or drains {ih., 26 L. J. C. P. 148). 



It would seem to be settled in Emhrey v. Owen that a ripcwian prO' 



