DB A I N AGE hi STIl ICT IE H XS. V 
Xo assessments can be levied upon the property of the Federal 
Government without its consent. It is generally necessary that the 
legislature make a definite provision for the assessing of State prop- 
erty, although some courts have held that this provision is implied 
in the drainage laws. The authorities seem to agree that State 
lands, if assessed, can not be sold to enforce the payment of the 
assessment, but that the lien attaches to the land and can be en- 
forced against a subsequent purchaser. 
In general, it may be said that any kind of property, or property 
owned by any individual or corporation, may be assessed if bene- 
fited. In the several States agricultural lands, highways, irrigation 
canals and ditches, counties, municipalities, railroads and street 
railways, telephone and telegraph companies, and other corporations 
may be assessed when benefited. The effect of the location of the 
property within municipal corporations, and other drainage districts, 
is discussed elsewhere in this bulletin. 
It is desirable that lands shall be assessed in small tracts. In 
many States the law requires that each 40-acre tract shall be sep- 
arately assessed, while other States require that the assessments shall 
be made on as large tracts as possible. It is recommended that as- 
sessments be made on the smallest practicable divisions of the tract, 
since experience has shown that where lands are assessed in large 
units there is always serious trouble in dividing the amount assessed 
when the property is divided or parts of it sold during the life of 
the assessment. Legally, however, the fact that only a portion of 
a tract is benefited does not prevent the whole of the tract being 
assessed: nor does the occupation by a landowner of a part of his 
land and the leasing of the rest constitute a division of the land into 
separate tracts where the statute requires separate assessments for 
each tract. 
Rights of way deeded to or taken by the drainage district generally 
can not be assessed. 
Assessments are made against the property itself and not against 
an individual. Thus, a tenant farmer can not be assessed, but the 
assessment is laid on the land he farms. However, if special bene- 
fits are derived, a business, company, corporation, or municipality 
can be assessed, and it is not generally necessary that it own real 
estate within the district to be liable for assessment. 
As a general rule, the arbitrary or intentional omission to asse-s 
a portion of the lands subject to assessment renders the whole ass 
ment invalid. But an entire assessment is not void because some of 
the lands in the drainage district are found not to be benefited and 
for that reason are omitted from the assessment. It has been held 
that the omission of a country church did not invalidate the entire 
assessment. (Curtis v. Hopson. 127 Ark. 344: 191 S. YV. 951.) 
BENEFITS. 
DEFINITION. 
Since a-ses-ments almost universally are apportioned according to 
benefits received, it would be well to have clearly in mind just what a 
benefit is. In Bouvier's Law Dictionary we find " benefit " denned 
as •"profit, fruit, or advantage" and this definition is the sense in 
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