(after stating the facts). The case involves only surface water. The rights of the owners of dominant and servient estates are well settled in this State, and there is no occasion to refer to authorities elsewhere. They have not been in unison upon the question of surface water. Justice Campbell, in Boyd v. Conklin,
Complainant has acquired the prescriptive right to maintain the old horseshoe tile ditches, and may relay them or their equivalent in round tile. In addition, complainant is entitled to cultivate his land in the manner usual in good husbandry, although the result may be to leave furrows which will cause the surface water to pass off more rapidly than it would were the land in its natural state. This was held to be the husbandman’s right in a case where a sag had been cultivated for 20 years, and the water had been turned therefrom by a furrow into a ravine. It was held that the complainant cannot complain of such drainage in the natural and usual course of husbandry. Gregory v. Bush,
There is no evidence in this case from which it can be determined that a three-inch round tile will carry more water than the old three-inch horseshoe tile did, or that it will increase the rapidity of the flow. Manifestly a four-inch and a six-inch tile will carry more water, and carry it more rapidly, than a round or horseshoe three-inch tile. It is conceded that the purpose of putting in the larger tile was to carry the water off more rapidly, and that it accomplishes the purpose. We think it is clear, from the cases above cited, that the owner of a dominant estate has not the right to collect the water upon his land by means of drains or ditches and empty it in a body upon the servient estate. Complainant, therefore, in doing this, exceeded his right acquired by prescription, and his right to drainage in the usual course of good husbandry.
Complainant had maintained for more than 20 years a tile drain extending upon and emptying into the lands of defendant. He was entitled to maintain this drain, and to enter upon the defendant’s lands to relay it. When the new drain was laid, complainant, by defendant’s permission, entered upon his land, and made gradual slopes
Decree affirmed.
