The Birmingham age-herald., 1921-01-22
By J. T. EVANS. Florence. Ala.L


 In recent report the reclam ltion at Washington gave Statement of the swamp lands subj ct to reclamation, of all the states-of the union. The report gave to Alabama something more than 100000 acres of such lands.
 Nearly all the states have good drainage laws; Alabama has one drawn after the other laws had been tried out, and is said to be the best law yet enacted. The supreme court of last May passed on the law and 1t is now no longer subject to criticism of any kind by buyers of bonds thas would be issued in conformity 10 iis provisions.
 Alabama has not drained any lana, due largely to lack of knowledge of
 the benefits to be derived from this form of improvement. The law is aot unlike the laws enjoyed by cities and | towns and road districts. That is he I law is a community law. If the own.
 CTS of the property on a street want l it improved the property ahuttfng the
 street to be improved is assessed with
 the request and consent of a majority
 of the owners. Roads are improved
 and the revenue similarly raised. If a creek or river is crooked and sluggish. causing the lands to overflow n ain periods and fail to drain themselves properly when the waters recede then q l majority of the owners of the prop erty or the owners of a majority l of the area affected, may by petition
 to the probate judge signify their ee> sire to improve the property. The court then takes action by appointing a board of viewers who examine the i property. who in turn if they decide
 the improvement of the property is
 practicable, recommend the appoints ] ment of competent engineer, who
 must be a drainage engineer, to make
 the necessary surveys to determine the
 area of lands to be embraced and to
 design the canals necessary to control the flood waters of the basin. A bill I of estimate is turned into the ;ourt and after proper legal notice has been 1 given all parties interested, perma> | nent drainage commissioners are ap- | pointed, and by legal process the drain- l. age district is incorporated. This cor | poration has powers and operates Ln- der the state law similarly to any other corporation, except that the court | becomes a member of the directo rate l with the commission and is it's execu- l tive head. Bonds are then issued and offered for sale as road or city londs,
 and the usual form of construction be- l gins.
 l It will be seen by the foregoing that
 drainage improvement is community laffair, and as such it should be treat> l ed. The impression has gone out ih Alabama that the government at Wash : tington has something to do with the carrying out of drainage projects. ] This idea comes from the fact that the department of agriculture maintains | a corps of engineers who give infor> nation in a general way about whether a district could or could not De im> proved.
 l To drain an area of any great extent a great deal of work is necessary to
 compile information vital to the prop, Ter design of the canals. An area of | 4,000 or 5000 acres often requires a l full corps of engineers in the field for l two or three months, and longer if the weather is bad. After this outside 1 data has been collected a long tedious | job must be done in the way of nak- 1 ing up the estimates and the 1etail calculation of the various items of work going into the formation of a properly designed drainage dis.rict. Government engineers do this work, and as contemplated under the law private engineers must collect this data.
 Suppose we discuss some of the ben- l efits of drainage. The drainage 'nw is sanitary law. Only under the ro> vision that a tax may be levied against 1 a mans property against his will owing to it's insantary condition could