Now, while we would never advocate any attack upon the rights of mill-owners, or ask them to sacrifice their interests to those of agriculture, it surely is proper to call attention to the injury which the productive capacity of the soil is suffering, by the flooding of our best tracts, in sections of country where land is most valuable. Could not mill-owners, in many instances, adopt steam instead of water-power, and becoming land-_draining_ companies, instead of land-_drowning_ companies; at least, let Nature have free course with her gently-flowing rivers, and allow the promise to be fulfilled, that the earth shall be no more cursed with a flood. We would ask for the land-owner, simply equality of rights with the mill-owner. If a legislature may grant the right to flow lands, against the will of the owner, to promote manufactures, the same legislature may surely grant the right, upon proper occasion, to remove dams, and other obstructions to our streams, to promote agriculture. The rights of mill-owners are no more sacred than those of land-owners; and the interests of manufactures are, surely, no more important than those of agriculture. We would not advocate much interference with private rights. In some of the States, no special privileges have been conferred upon water-power companies. They have been left to procure their rights of flowage, by private contract with the land-owners; and in such States, probably, the legislatures would be as slow to interfere with rights of flowage, as with other rights. Yet, there are cases where, for the preservation of the health of the community, and for the general convenience, governments have everywhere exercised the power of interfering with private property, and limiting the control of the owners. To preserve the public health, we abate as nuisances, by process of law, slaughter-houses, and other establishments offensive to health and comfort, and we provide, by compulsory assessments upon land-owners, for sewerage, for side-walks, and the like, in our cities. Everywhere, for the public good, we take private property for highways, upon just compensation, and the property of corporations is thus taken, like that of individuals. Again, we compel adjacent owners to fence their lands, and maintain their proportion of division fences of the legal height, and we elect fence viewers, with power to adjust equitably, the expenses of such fences. We assess bachelors and maidens, in most States, for the construction of schoolhouses, and the education of the children of others, and, in various ways, compel each member of society to contribute to the common welfare.