DKAIjSTAGE distbiot assessments. 83 
The Supreme Court of Illinois in Commissioners of Highways y. 
Drainage Commissioners, 127 111. 581, says that where the law pro- 
vides that the lands of a district shall be classified, a classification of 
highways is not necessary, as they form a class by themselves. The 
Iowa Supreme Court, in Chicago, Rock Island & Pacific Ry. v. 
Wright County Drainage District No. 43 et al., 154 N. W. 889, said : 
* * * True, if figured out on a mere acreage basis, the iimount assessed is 
materially greater than the average assessment Laid wi>'>:i the :,<vm Lands in the 
district, but that in itself is quite manifestly an insufficient ground for setting 
aside or reducing the assessment, for the statute does not contemplate the trej 
ment of the right of way solely as a mere fraction of the agricultural are;, id 
which it is found. Upon it is placed the plaintiif's road over which commerce 
is carried on. Upon it are the graded roadbed, the ties, rails, bridges, culverts, 
fences, and whatever more is found convenient in caring for and promoting the 
business to which it is devoted. That it was competent for the board of super- 
visors, notwithstanding the denial by the plaintiff's witnesses, to take all I 
matters into consideration and to find that the solidity and safety of the rdad- 
bed, the effective life of the ties, the maintenance of the tracks, culverts, bridges, 
and fences would be materially promoted by the drainage of the swamp m <i 
surface waters from its right of way and from the immediately adjacent prea 
ises, can not be doubted. Then, too, the right to assess is not dependent upon a 
showing of benefits in the shape of an immediate increase in market values, but 
actual values, intrinsic value or worth. Camp v. Davenport, 151 Iowa 38 ; 
130 N. W. 137, and cases there cited. 
It has been held in the case of the Illinois Central Railroad Co., 
v. East Lake Fork Drainage District, 21 N. E. 925, that a provision 
in the drainage law authorizing the assessment of a right of way and 
tracks of a railroad company for benefits thereto from the proposed 
drainage is not unconstitutional and void because such right of way 
and tracks can not be benefited for agricultural and sanitary pur- 
poses, since the benefits to lands are not confined to agricultural and 
sanitary purposes, but the law authorizes the levy of such assessments 
in proportion to any benefits received from drainage. In the case 
of Cache Eiver Drainage District v. Chicago & Eastern Illinois 
Railroad Co., 225 111. 398: 99 fit. E. 635, the syllabus states: 
That in assessing lands for a drainage district improvement, no acre of 
farm land was assessed more than $3.08 an acre and no acre of adjoining 
land used as a railroad right of way, but constituting the same kind of land 
was assessed less than $41.66 an acre, does not show gross discrimination. 
There is great difference of opinion as to the elements of benefit 
which railroads receive from a drainage improvement. Such bene- 
fits may be roughly divided into two classes: First, the physical 
benefit to the railroad property ; and second, the prospective benefits 
resulting from the increased business which will come to the railroad 
by reason of increased productivity of the land benefited by the 
drainage. 
The laws of Alabama, Delaware. Florida, Georgia, Kentucky. 
Mississippi (1912), Missouri, Nebraska, North Carolina, Oregon. 
South Carolina, Virginia, and West Virginia specify that only 
physical benefits shall be considered. In some of these States the 
statutes after making provision for the levying of assessments for 
benefits which will accrue to the right of way, roadbed, and other 
property, add " but no benefits may be assessed for any increase in 
its business that may come to the road because of the construction 
of the improvement." The courts of several other States have also 
taken this view, as, for example, the Iowa Supreme Court in Chi- 
