00 BULLETIN 1207, U. S. DEPARTMENT OF AGRICULTURE. 
to build and maintain such a bridge. The second is of an intangible 
sort, as it depends on the size and shape of the fields divided by the 
ditch and the use made of them. Small and irregular fields are not 
a great disadvantage on a truck farm but a serious inconvenience 
to a farmer using machinery. Experience has shown that in a short 
time landowners along a large ditch will adjust their boundary lines 
by sales and trades to the line of the ditch. While this may properly 
affect the amount of damages awarded, it should not be a con- 
trolling factor, for the drainage district can not compel a man to 
trade or sell part of his property to retrieve injury to the whole. 
The location of a ditch in relation to property lines should receive 
a great deal of thought from drainage engineers. A ditch when 
once constructed can not readily be moved, and hence it should be 
so located as to damage lands through which it runs as little as 
possible, while conforming to principles of engineering design. 
Another element sometimes present is the loss of growing crops 
on lands used by the district or overflowed during construction. 
Sometimes a floating dredge holds back water to flood adjoining 
farm land. In such locations the value of the crop damaged should 
be paid. The district is, however, liable only for damages resulting 
from proper construction, not for any negligence of the drainage 
commissioners or the contractor. 
Another element of damage is where watering places for stock 
are drained or their use made impracticable. In such cases it seems 
just to award an amount sufficient to buy and maintain a windmill 
or, as is sometimes possible in a tile drainage system, to provide a 
watering place by tapping the tile and piping drainage water to a 
watering trough. 
The question whether or not a drainage district should fence its 
right of way sometimes arises when damages are being considered. 
The district is liable for existing fences it destroys and might build 
new ones in lieu of paying damages for injured fences, but, in the 
absence of a statutory requirement, a district can not be compelled 
to fence its right of way. 
There may be, in special cases, other items of damage, but those 
mentioned are the common ones. Most of these are tangible and can 
be readily evaluated. The total amount awarded must be equal to 
the difference in market value of the tract before and after the im- 
provement without regard to benefits derived from the improvement. 
In many States, after both damages and assessments based on 
benefits have been determined, they can be set off against each other. 
A number of courts have held that subtracting from the assessment 
for benefit an amount equal to the damages awarded constitutes 
compensation within the meaning of the term as it is used in the Con- 
stitution. Some States do not follow this rule. Nebraska courts 
hold that the landowner must be paid cash for consequential damages 
unless action is taken in court, when excess of benefits above the 
assessment may be offset against consequential damages. A number 
of courts hold that where land is taken it must be paid for, but 
where consequential damages are awarded they may be offset against 
benefits. The courts usually require, where the damages exceed 
benefits or where cash payments are required, that they must be 
paid or provision made for paying before the taking or injuring 
of the land may be begun. 
