MODERN LIVING: Mow It Yourself

In Baxter Springs, Kans. last week, engineers of the Root Co. demonstrated a power lawnmower which hardly needs an operator. After being run once around the lawn, the mower is steered by an electronic feeler which is guided by the uncut long grass. The mower, to be made for Fairbanks, Morse next year, will probably sell for $300.

The machine is the latest gadget of the power garden tool business, an industry that has sprung up like crab grass since the war. All over the U.S. last week, men were revving up their power mowers and heading into the wild green yonder with all the enthusiasm of fighter pilots climbing into the sun. Children were cleaning up as much as $75 a week, making the neighborhood rounds with the family machine. Sears, Roebuck reported it was selling one power mower for every two non-powered machines.

Before the war, a mere handful of companies turned out some 60,000 power mowers a year, only 3% of the total mower market. Now, more than 100 companies are in the business and power-mower sales are running at $100 million a year, about half the total market. (Among the leaders: Reo Motors, Jacobsen Mfg. Co., Toro Mfg. Corp.) The twofold reason for the boom: 1) suburban population has soared 40% since before the war (v. a 12% rise in the cities) and 2) the cost of hiring someone to cut the grass has climbed so high ($1.50 to $2.25 an hour) that the average power lawnmower, at $150, will almost pay for itself in one summer.

_ Other garden gadgets are also getting a big play. Food Machinery & Chemical Corp., for example, is doing a big business with small tractors ($129 and up) to which some 30 different attachments can be hitched—including a saw, a snowplow and blower, and an air compressor which can be used for spraying paint or insecticides or for greasing a car. Another Food Machinery device: the “Trim Master” ($45), which sucks up ragged grass along borders and snips it off.