ill its relation to Agriculture. 
445 
litalc the diaina^o and the ultimate cultivation of these lands ; 
but the only new lo<^aI features in these modern enactments are the 
lirovisions for raising the capital required. Nothing is changed 
in the old legislation on the disposing of wastewater, &c. 
Tiie owner of an estate traversed or even merely bordered by 
a runninjr stream can make use of the water of such streams for 
purposes of irrigation, but he may not divert it altogether, and 
he is bound to return the stream after he has used it into the old 
channel at the point where his property ends. The old Roman 
law especially protected the rights of all the owners of property 
along the couse of a running stream. Aquam de Jitunine jniblico, 
it says, pro modo possessionnm ad irri(jandos acjros dividi oportet* 
But in this respect the French Code Civil recognizes the rights 
arising out of ancient custom."]" If a careful examination be made 
of those established local usages, especially in districts where, 
as in Provence and Languedoc, from the dryness of the 
climate, irrigation has from time immemorial been indispensable 
to production, it will be found that the spirit of the Roman 
legislation has survived, and that all available historical records 
agree in establishing the fact that neither barbaric invasion, nor 
the lawless and arbitary rule of feudalism, nor the centralizing 
policy of the French kings, have been able to root out from the 
land, and from the habits and ideas of the cultivators thereof, 
those sacred principles of right and justice which Roman civiliza- 
tion has established, to protect and foster the interests of property. 
On the important question of the right of constructing mills 
and other hydraulic engines on the course of public rivers, and 
that of constructing dams to raise the level of the water with the 
view of increasing its motive power, I have already referred to 
feudal practices and to the legislation of Lewis XIV. The famous 
ordinance in the year 16G9, which quashed all concessions posterior 
to the year 1566, peremptorily ordered the demolition of such 
obstructions the owners of which could not produce titles anterior 
to that date. The law of the Directory, 19th Ventose, year VI., 
went further, and enacted that within one month all mills, &c., 
erected in virtue of feudal rights then abolished should be 
removed. Although the direct ostensible aim of that law was 
to facilitate the navigation of rivers, no practical agriculturist 
can fail to appreciate its value and importance for clearing the 
channels of rivers and. protecting the freedom of their outfall. 
It would no doubt be most useful to follow the French law, or 
rather the Roman legislation, through their elaborate and minute 
enactments for the protection of the interests of agriculture, in 
* ' De Servit. Prted. Rust.' 
t Art. 645. Dans tons les cas les regleuients particuliers et locaux sur la 
cuurs ot I'usage des eaux, doivent etre observes. 
2 ii. 2 
