This is strenuous work both for the lawn mower and the person operating it.  The former will probably be nearly worn out by the end of the summer, so in choosing this tool get a good but not too elaborate one.  Later, when the grounds are in good condition will be time enough to indulge in the better grades of hand or even power driven lawn mowers.  Likewise, we do not recommend the task of either rolling or breaking in a lawn to a man who has led a sedentary life for years.  It will be cheaper in the long run to engage a muscular individual in the locality who understands and is accustomed to such work.  Whether such an one is engaged by the hour, day, week or year, we would add a word of warning based on our own blundering experiences.  Beyond being sober, honest, and willing, make sure he is strong enough for such heavy work, that he is reasonably intelligent and, most important of all, that he is not “working to accommodate.”  The latter is frequently voiced by members of decadent native families who resent the curse of Adam and like to assume that any gesture toward the hated thing, called work, is purely voluntary rather than necessary.  If these words fall from the lips of a man you are considering for odd jobs and tilling of the soil, leave him severely alone and look for a good energetic individual who knows he was made to work and is glad of it.  Otherwise, the “accommodating” one will condescendingly show up for work an hour late, regard you with a pitying smile as you outline the job, and then allow that of course you are the boss but you are going at it all wrong.  When, after lengthy discussion of how an intelligent country-born person would arrange matters, he senses that the evil moment of going to work can no longer be put off, he directs his lagging steps to the spot where the tools are waiting.  These he regards with blackest pessimism.  His attitude is that only a city moron would provide such poor things but, of course, he will do the best he can with them.  In the course of the day he gets a little work done but in such sketchy fashion that most of it must be done over.

Nor does he improve as the days go by.  When you decide to part with him, probably soon after your first inspection of his work, you will get a fresh shock at the size of his bill.  Such people have an exaggerated idea of the value of their services.  It is difficult to get them to name a price at the beginning; and in the rare cases where a set sum is agreed upon, the final reckoning will invariably include certain extras or a plaint that “the job was different than you claimed and I don’t do heavy work like that for nobody without I get extra pay and I was just working to accommodate—­” and so forth.  Usually you end by paying him and charging it off to experience.