OBJECTIONS ANSWERED.--It is said to be a universal law maxim, "that you may use your own as you will, but not to the detriment of your neighbor," and that this principle forbids this kind of drainage. This maxim may be general, but it is not universal. My neighbor may have built his house and other domestic arrangements in the lee of a natural grove of timber on my land. The removal of this grove may be a real grievance by giving the wind too free a sweep; yet my right to change this waste into a grain field will not be questioned. My warranty deed is my right thus to improve my land, though it be "to the detriment of my neighbor." He should have foreseen the contingency of a removal of these woods. On like principles a land owner may remove an excess of water so as to raise corn and not rushes. In the removal of woods my neighbor may not have an immediate remedy for his ills, but the effect of my ditches may be turned to good account by continuing them, and thus improving his land as I have mine. My warranty deed is my right to cultivate my own land, and this right carries the right to cultivate it in the best manner. The lower man should have taken judicial notice that water runs down hill, and that in this progressive age ditches may be cut and tiles laid. But it is said that this court decision follows the English Common law; and now being settled by a decision, it is not open for further consideration. In this progressive age nothing is settled until it is settled right. Judge Taney once judicially settled the status of the African race. The common law was held to forbid the bridging of navigable streams. Harbors could only be made where the water was salt and affected by the tides. The Dartmouth college decision was held to so cover railroad corporations as to shield them from legislative control. These have all been overturned by the march of events, and this Appellate court decision is not necessarily immortal. For fifty years the farmers of Illinois knew no such rule. The public roads have been improved by side ditches which dropped the water into the first depression. In 1873 there was placed in the road law a provision that a land owner may drain on the public road by giving timely notice, and this stands through all revisions. Blackstone in his commentaries does not class this kind of drainage as a nuisance or trespass to lower lands, but he does its opposite, where the lower man neglects to "scour" a ditch, and thus sets back the water to the harm of the upper man. If this court rule is common law, as claimed, then it may be further said that a rule for the dark ages when drainage was exceptional, is not necessarily the true rule, since drainage has become so large a part of good agriculture.