980 LAWS OF MARYLAND. [Ch. 656]

CHAPTER 656.

AN ACT to promote the public health, convenience and welfare
by levying, ditching and draining the wet, swamp and over-
flowed lands within the State, and providing for the estab-
lishment of levee or draining districts for the purpose of
enlarging or changing any natural water courses, and for
digging ditches or canals for securing better drainage or
providing better outlets for drainage for building levees or
embankments and installing tide gates or pumping plants
for the reclamation of overflowed lands, and prescribing a
method for so doing; and providing for the assessment and
collection of the cost and expense of the same, and issuing
and selling bonds therefor, and for the care and mainten-
ance of such improvements, when constructed.

SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of Mary-
land, That the Board of County Commissioners of any county
in the State of Maryland shall have jurisdiction, power and
authority to establish a levee or drainage district or districts
in their county, and to locate and establish levees, drains or
canals, and cause to be constructed, straightened, widened or
deepened any ditch, drain or water course, and to build levees
or embankments and erect tide water gates and pumping plants
for the purpose of draining and reclaiming wet, swamp or over-
flowed lands; and it is hereby declared that the drainage of
swamps and the drainage of the surface water from agricultural
lands and the reclamation of tidal marshes shall be considered
a public benefit and conducive to the public health, convenience,
utility and welfare.

SEC. 2. Be it enacted, That whenever a petition signed by a
majority of the resident landowners in a proposed drainage
district or by the owners of three-fifths of all the land which
will be affected by or assessed for the expense of the proposed
improvements shall be filed in the office of the clerk of the
Board of County Commissioners of any county in which a
part of said lands are located, setting forth that any specific
body or district of land in the county and adjoining counties,
described in such a way as to convey an intelligent idea as to
the location of such land, is subject to overflow or too wet for
cultivation, and the public benefit or utility or the public
health, convenience or welfare will be promoted by draining,
ditching or leveeing the same, or by changing or improving the
natural water courses, and setting forth therein, as far as