Opinion of the Court-Sullivan, C. J. 5. That the alleged benefits are prospective, conjectural and therefore void. (1) As to the first objection: Counsel for appellants concede that the purpose of said canal corporation is merely to hold the legal title to the canal and appurtenant water rights in trust for the farmers and users of water, but, on the other hand, it is contended that these farmers have taken it upon themselves to organize the canal company for convenience and economy in operating their system of irrigation; that the corporation itself is a legal entity recognized by law, which the farmers by their act of incorporation voluntarily created for convenience and economy. And it is also contended that no action will lie against the various stockholders of said corporation; that the corporation holds the legal title itself, and is responsible for the repair and up-keep of the canal, and that if such canal by breakage or seepage damages any owner's land, it is the canal company that is sued and is in law the only proper party to sue, and that all taxes and assessments, if any, against the canal system, as distinguished from the land under the canal, are properly assessed and levied against said corporation; and it is contended that it therefore follows that if the system of drainage affords relief from liability for damages or lessens the expense of maintenance, it is the corporation that is benefited. Counsel for respondents contend that said canal and ditch companies are not organized for profit, and are exempt under the law from taxation, and it may be inferred from the argument in their printed brief that they claim that exemption from taxation carries with it exemption from special assessments. It is a well-recognized rule that a constitutional or statutory exemption from taxation is generally held to apply only to taxation for the general purposes of government, city, county or municipality, and not to relieve from liability for local assessments for municipal and other like improvements. (12 Am. & Eng. Ency. of Law, 314, and cases cited; also People v. Pitt, 169 N. Y. 521, 62 N. E. 662, 58 L. R. A. 372, and authorities cited.) Opinion of the Court-Sullivan, C. J. There is, therefore, nothing in the contention of counsel that because canal and ditch companies are exempt from taxation, that that exempts them from special assessments for improvements. (2) We will next consider the contention that the waste ditch of the canal company will not be benefited, but will actually be destroyed by the drainage system, which contention applies only to the canal company. It appears that the canal company has and is required to keep up for the purpose of carrying off its surplus water a waste ditch about two and three-fourths miles long and two rods wide, which costs the canal company considerable money each year to clean and maintain, and it seems that it was the theory of the commissioners that with the construction of the proposed drainage system, such system would largely take care of the surplus water and relieve the canal company from maintaining at least the principal portion of said waste ditch and thus would be a saving and benefit to the canal company. Counsel for the canal company contend that by the construction of the proposed drainage system said drainage ditch would become unnecessary and useless, and therefore of no value, and that the construction of the drainage system would deprive them of property without due process of law. There is nothing in this contention, if it be true that the drainage system would relieve the canal company of the burden of keeping up and maintaining said waste ditch. The assessment made by the commissioners is not against the waste ditch, as such, but against the corporation by reason of being relieved of the necessity or burden of maintaining the waste ditch. It appears to us that this would be clearly a special benefit. In the text, 9 R. C. L., p. 654, it is stated as follows: "Special benefits for which a land owner may be assessed, as distinguished from general benefits for which he may not be assessed, are whatever increase the value of the land, relieve it from a burden, or make it especially adapted to a purpose which enhances its value." Opinion of the Court-Sullivan, C. J. To the same effect is Lipes v. Hand, 104 Ind. 508, 1 N. E. 871, 4 N. E. 160; Heffner v. Cass and Morgan Counties, 193 Ill. 439, 62 N. E. 201, 58 L. R. A. 353, and notes to the latter case. (3) The third objection is to the effect that the canal company's lands have not been assessed by setting opposite each tract of land the benefits assessed thereon. By referring to sec. 9 (Sess. Laws 1913, p. 63), it will be observed that the amount of assessment is to be set "opposite the correct description of each lot, tract or easement." The rights of way of the respondents are easements, and it is proper to consider each right of way as one entire easement. The statute does not require that each right of way or easement shall be divided up into small parcels and an assessment fixed against each parcel (See In re Johnson Drainage Dist. No. 9, 141 Iowa, 380, 118 N. W. 380.) (4) The fourth contention is that since the assessment against the canal company is $20,000 and that against the ditch company is $10,000, and that the canal company's right of way, figured on the acreage basis, would be assessed at $200 per acre and the ditch company's at $100 per acre, such assessments would be arbitrary, unjust and void. As before stated, the question as to whether such assessments are arbitrary, unjust and void because of the amount is not before this court in this proceeding. The findings of the commission no doubt were based on some evidence, and this court cannot in this proceeding determine whether they are arbitrary and unjust without the evidence that the commissioners had before them. It was held in Reclamation Dist. No. 70 v. Sherman, 11 Cal. App. 399, 105 Pac. 277, that "the duty of the commissioners is to make an estimate of the whole expense of the proposed reclamation works, and then assess the land embraced in the district proportionate to the whole expense thereof and according to the benefits which will result to each parcel of land from such reclamation. It is clear that the statute contemplates that considerable discretion shall be exercised by the commissioners in the determination of the question as to Opinion of the Court-Sullivan, C. J. benefits which will accrue to the several tracts of land included in the district. By this we mean to say that, while an arbitrary assessment cannot be levied, the judgment of the commissioners upon the assessment, after a view of the land as contemplated by the statute, must be presumed to have been the result of a consideration of all the elements necessary to a just apportionment of the assessment." (See, also, Riverdale Reclamation Dist. No. 805 v. Shimmin, 24 Cal. App. 595, 141 Pac. 1070.) In In re Johnson Drainage Dist. No. 9, 141 Iowa, 380, 118 N. W. 380, it was held that the benefits to a railroad right of way were entirely different from farm land, and should not be assessed on the same basis as forty-acre tracts. In that case the court said: "Neither railroad property nor highways are used as lands are ordinarily used, and hence the benefits to be derived by such property from the improvement are of an entirely different character from those conferred upon agricultural lands." (Leonard v. Arnold, 244 Ill. 429, 91 N. E. 534; Jackson v. Board of Supervisors, 159 Iowa, 673, 140 N. W. 849.) The reasonableness or unreasonableness of an assessment levied against the respondents is a matter that the law provides is to be determined on the trial of the issues of fact. That question may be submitted to a jury under proper instructions from the court, but until there is proof to the contrary, the determination of the commissioners must be construed as prima facie correct as to the amount of such assessments. (5) The fifth contention, that the alleged benefits assessed against the respondents are prospective and conjectural and therefore void is without merit. It is true that it is difficult to assess benefits that will accrue in the future with any particular degree of certainty even against farm lands, and the courts uniformly hold that an approximate estimate is all that is necessary. The fact that an exact measurement of the benefits which may accrue to land in a drainage district cannot be ascertained with accuracy until after the completion of the system, and perhaps not then, does not Opinion of the Court-Sullivan, C. J. render the damages so speculative and conjectural in their nature as to be impossible of reasonable ascertainment before the improvement is made. In the case of Nemaha Valley Drainage Dist. No. 2 v. Marconnit, 90 Neb. 514, 134 N. W. 177, the court had under consideration an objection to the effect that benefits which may accrue are so speculative and conjectural in their nature as to be impossible of ascertainment until after the construction of the improvements, and said: "This objection, however, would be equally applicable to proceedings in the ascertainment of damages occasioned by the laying out of highways or the building of railroads. Furthermore, if no assessment and levy could be made until after an improvement of this nature was completed, common prudence on the part of engineers and contractors would no doubt operate so that it would be a long time before the land would be relieved from overflow." This court held in Woodland v. Portneuf-Marsh Valley Irr. Co., 26 Ida. 789, 146 Pac. 1106, that exact and definite measurements of the respective quantities of water from different sources are not essential to sustain the verdict of a jury in determining what amount of damages a defendant corporation as an independent tort-feasor should pay as compensation for the injury caused by its part of such water, although some evidence in that respect is essential. Courts have not refused to award damages occasioned by seepage or saturation because such damages were indefinite or conjectural. (McCarty v. Boise City Canal Co., 2 Ida. 245, 10 Pac. 623; Arave v. Idaho Canal Co., 5 Ida. 68, 46 Pac. 1024; Stuart v. Noble Ditch Co., 9 Ida. 765, 76 Pac. 255; Verheyen v. Dewey, 27 Ida. 1, 146 Pac. 1116.) Counsel for respondents contend that the assessments made against the defendant corporations are levied upon an erroneous basis and in total disregard of any benefits that they may or can receive from the construction of said drainage system, and that in so far as said sec. 9 of the drainage law of 1913 and said sec. 9a of the 1915 laws can be construed to justify such assessments, they are unconstitutional and void. It is conceded by counsel for respondents that in this |