Rensselaer Republican, Volume 26, Number 43, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 June 1894 — DITCH REPAIR. [ARTICLE]

DITCH REPAIR.

The public works such as roads, streets, parks etc., after being constructed, to be of public utility must be kept in repair. - Ditches are no exception to this rule. In fact the usefulness of a drain depends almost entirety on the way it is kept. If silt, sticks, grass and other deposits be allowed to collect, and thus retard the flow of water, the “circulation” of the district above is checked to the same degree. If the blood be checked in its flow through the arteries or its return through the veins, no matter what the cause, bad results will follow and if the cause be not removed, death comes. So it is with the drainage of our land. If we allow this state of affairs to go on day by day without making some attempt to free ourselves from the “bondage” of water, we hasten our own destruction, we die, not a temporal, nor a spiritual, but an agricultural death. We must drain, or short" will be our race from the - cornfield to the crib. We have some good drainage laws if only we see that they are

properly enforced. Uwish to direct my remarks mainly tOAhn.: repair of ditches already constructed or partially constructed. In section 10 in the Acts of April Bth, 1881, the township Trustee is required to make an assessment againsh-the lands benefitted to defray the expenses of “cleaning?” This section is amended in 1883, so that if any of this repair work has been caused by the neglect of any party along the line whether owner, occupant, employee or agent, then the costs shall be assessed against such lands alone. The legislature of 1885 placed a fine of 8100 for obstructing any drain. In 1880 came our law of allotting for repair, each land owner receiving his proportionate share of the ditch' to clean out; the ratio to be based on the assess went for construction.

This law gives the trustee the option of delaying the repair for two years and makes it his duty to finish any Unfinished work after the first of November. This act makes it the duty of the surveyor to allot all ditches for repair except those constructed by assessment made by reviewers, and those which extend into two counties. It also makes it the surveyor’s duty to re-allot any ditch that has been allotted for two years or more, if petitioned to do so by one half of those interested in the drain. Repairs under this law to be made in September and October. The law of 1891 changes the time of repair to August, September and October, and to be completed on a certain date fixed by the trustee. Suit may be brought and a fine assessed provided all the work below is complete. Under section 7 of this act the trustee is authorized to give each party to whom an allotment has been made, notice before the first of August to clean his allotment, each year. This amendment does not permit the trustee to wait on any party until the first of November, but says he “shall proceed at once to have the same completed.” This means as explained in the act immediately after the expiration of the time fixed by the trustee. The trustee is required to make a statement of the costs of such work, and give it to the Auditor who shall place the same on his tax duplicate. The law of 1893 makes another important change to the effect that where any person shall have converted that portion of the ditch running through his land into a blind ditch by putting in drain tile across his land, th# same being continuous from the source of the ditch, he is exempt from any work in the repair of such ditch. This requires also a new allotment of the remainder of the ditch.

Now to make a summary of these acts and their amendments. It is the Surveyor’s duty to allot all ditches for repairs that have been constructed in the county except those constructed under re-viewer, and ditches located in two counties, the five-mile or Timmons law of 1891, private and State ditches, and the Gifford law. In those not allotted tne surveyor is required to sell out the work of repair. Now let each ollicial and all others interested in the great question of drainage seek not only to know but to do his duty unflinchingly, with “love for all and malice toward none.” Let us maintain in good condition all the ditches we have constructed, so that we may obtain the best possible results. If this is done I verily believe that the money we have expended in the construction of these ditches, shall, like “bread cast upon the Waters,” return to us before many days. Seventeen public ditches have been allotted for repairs during the past year in this county and still there’s more to follow. Let us shock up all the ditches we have harvested, whether we get any more or not, and get them ready for the floods lest the rain descends on our cornfields in such quantities that it cannot get away, until the crops perish. Remove every obstacle, cut wide and deep and bid the surplus water of our frog ponds and cat tail marshes good speed as toward the sea she glides onward in the even tenor of her way along the incline plane made by the smooth grade line in the bottom of the ditch. Only

pure and bright while in motion, “let ’er roll.” -

JOHN E. ALTER,

Surveyor.