46 BULLETIN L207, I'. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
In an Ohio case, Lake Erie & Western Railroad v. Hancock Co., 
63 Ohio St. 23; 57 N. E. 1009, the court held that the location and 
construction of a public ditch across or upon the right of way of a 
railroad company, though the ditch be constructed of tiling and be- 
neath the surface, was an appropriation of the company's property 
which entitled it to compensation for the value of the interest so 
taken. 
In conclusion, it may be said that it is impossible to give a stand- 
ard rule with regard to damages to railroads. Each district must 
be guided by the law under which it is organized and by the court 
decisions construing that law. The amounts to be allowed for the 
various items of damages can usually be readily estimated. 
HIGHWAY ASSESSiMENTS, 
The assessment of benefits to highways is analagpus to the assess- 
ment of benefits to railroads and. in fact, the same methods of ;i 
nienl are prescribed by all State drainage laws. The laws of most 
States provide that highways shall be assessed according to the 
benefits due to decreased maintenance charges and increased 
efficiency. Arkansas specifies that highways shall be assessed in the 
same manner as farm lands, which is also the requirement for rail- 
road assessments. 
In practice, assessments of benefits to highways are determined in 
about the same manner as are railroad benefits. In some cases, the 
Lands included in the highway are assessed at the rate per acre 
of adjoining farm lands, intensified two to live times. The general 
rule, however, is to determine the difference in the maintenance cost 
of the road before and after drainage, which amount, capitalized, 
is assumed to be the amount of benefit the highway receives. 
Bearing in mind the discussion under railroad assessments, the 
benefits to be considered would seem to be those resulting from physi- 
cal betterment due, as in the case of railroad assessments, to decreased 
maintenance charges and increased efficiency. 
In the case of highways, decreased maintenance charges are made 
up almost entirely of savings in the repairs to the road itself, as it is 
seldom possible to decrease the size or length of highway bridges. 
The amount of such savings is very hard to determine, for, while 
it may be found by comparing the amounts spent on the undrained 
road with the maintenance charges on similar stretches of highway 
on well-drained ground, very little reliable data of- such costs are 
available. Certain difficulties are always present when such a com- 
parison is attempted, as. for instance, the different density and 
character of traffic, different soil conditions, different standards of 
maintenance and efficiency between the stretches compared, and the 
gnai dearth of cost data on maintenance work for all types of roads. 
However, whatever cost data have been compiled are public property. 
and for that reason arc somewhal more available than are similar 
data pertaining to railroads. Where such savings can be determined., 
the benefit due to this cause will be the capitalized amount of the 
annual savings. 
[Increased efficiency means making the road better to travel over. 
There is some question as to whether this is a special or a general 
benefit and whether, when assessments have been levied against 
