14 BULLETIN 1207, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
It sometimes happens that a body of high land is so surrounded by 
swamps and lowlands that it is difficult of access. In such cases the 
high land receives a substantial benefit due to the improved access 
resulting from the drainage of the surrounding wet lands. Like- 
wise, when a farm is divided by a swale or swamp so that it is 
difficult to get from one part of the farm to the other or so that the 
cultivation of the land is more costly because of this division of the 
farm, the draining of the swale or swamp will remove these dif- 
ficulties and the courts have held that this fact should be considered 
as a part of the benefit due to drainage. The Missouri Supreme 
Court said in regard to Mingo Drainage District, 267 Mo. 284: 
It may well be that the drainage of low, wet, and swampy lands lying about, 
around or near high hill land will so far benefit the latter in matters of sani- 
tation and ease of egress and ingress as to render it entirely equitable that 
the hill land should bear a modicum of the cost of draining the lowland. 
But where lands in the vicinity of a drainage district have in- 
creased in value, as a result of the increased values in the drainage 
district due to the improvement, the increased value is a general and 
not a special benefit, unless the lands receive some benefit either direct 
or indirect from the drainage. Such a condition is found in Shaw 
v. Board of Commissioners, TO Sou. 910. 
The laws of surface water's affecting special benefits. — Since all 
lands needing drainage are to some extent affected by surface waters, 
it is necessary to know just what rights appertain to the land with 
regard to the water which flows upon it. From a legal standpoint 
there are two kinds of water upon land, natural watercourses and 
surface waters. A watercourse is a stream flowing in a definite chan- 
nel, having a bed and banks, which generally discharges itself into 
another stream or body of water. While the flow need not be con- 
tinuous, but may altogether cease at times, it must be more than sur- 
face drainage occasioned by unusual rains or other causes. A ravine 
or depression through which surface drainage flows is not a water- 
course. 
Surface waters are those falling as rain or snow which diffuse 
themselves over the ground, which follow no definite channel with 
banks, and gather into no more definite body of water than a bog, 
swamp, or marsh. 
There is a question as to whether flood or overflow waters outside 
of the stream channel should be considered a part of the watercourse 
or as surface w T aters. The generally accepted opinion is that if flood 
water flows in the general direction of the stream, although outside 
the hanks, or if it leaves the main current to return later, it is a 
watercourse. On the other hand, if it leaves the main current never 
to return and spreads over the ground, it becomes surface water. 
Surface waters, when they find their way into ponds, creeks, or, 
in some States, artificial ditches, are no longer surface waters. Ii has 
been held that water seeping through a levee becomes surface water. 
The rule of law in regard to a watercourse is that the waters of 
such a stream are not to be obstructed, impeded, or turned aside 
except upon the condition that the person so doing shall respond in 
damages for all injuries sustained. It has been held that a riparian 
owner has the right to protect his own land from overflow by build- 
ing an embankment or levee upon it, but in so doing he must have 
