home *** CD-ROM | disk | FTP | other *** search
- <text id=89TT1726>
- <title>
- July 03, 1989: Business Notes:Lawn Care
- </title>
- <history>
- TIME--The Weekly Newsmagazine--1989
- July 03, 1989 Great Ball Of Fire:Angry Sun
- </history>
- <article>
- <source>Time Magazine</source>
- <hdr>
- BUSINESS, Page 45
- Business Notes
- LAWN CARE
- Mowing with The Reel Thing
- </hdr><body>
- <p> For Dagwood Bumstead types, the old-fashioned manual lawn
- mower was a suburban symbol of dread. Among modern-day gentry
- who want to get a little exercise and avoid fouling the
- neighborhood with noise and exhaust pollution, however, the
- motorless mower is making a quiet comeback. Sales of reel
- mowers by the American Lawn Mower Co. of Shelbyville, Ind.,
- reached 100,000 last year, a 47% increase over 1986. Average
- price: less than $100, in contrast to $250 or more for motorized
- models.
- </p>
- <p> Today's manual mowers typically weigh about 20 lbs., less
- than half their clunky progenitors, thanks to lightweight alloy
- blades and polymer wheels. But for lawn connoisseurs, the
- manual mower's greatest advantage is its quality performance,
- claims Jim Hewitt, American Lawn Mower's vice president for
- marketing and sales. "A power mower can fragment the end of the
- grass like the split end of a hair," he explains. "A manual
- shears the lawn real smooth, like a crew cut."
- </p>
-
- </body></article>
- </text>
-
-