I was sitting on our porch, watching the guys mow the grass, with an eight thousand dollar mower, and got to wondering, who invented grass. I did some research and figured some of it out.
A guy by the name of Charlie Mower had this invention. He was a blacksmith, and had messed up on some steel that he was going to use for swords. When he got done, they all came out twisted, no use for them. He also had been making some small wheels for old Charlie Parkinson, and had some of them left over.
He got to tinkering, and put his twisted swords on the extra wheels, and has the idea to make an automatic potato peeler. But when he got it all together, it was too powerful for a potato, ate it right up, so he tossed the idea aside.
Then he got the idea to put wheels on it, make it turn, and use it to push snow around in the winter. That didn't work out, didn't push enough snow, so what to do.
Then, one day, old Harley Ferguson stopped by, and Harley and Charlie just sat and stared at his contraption.
Mae, Charlie's wife, yelled out from the house, "Get the scythe out and cut that darn green stuff growing in the yard, it's lookin pretty awful."
Well, Charlie and Harley had the same idea at the same time, and they got his contraption out and started pushing it around the yard, and the green stuff just flew, and in no time, they had the yard looking like a "putting green," which was something they had seen when they visited a golf tournament at the county seat some years ago. They cut them with big shears, this was a lot easier. The first "green stuff cutter" was born.
Well they didn't sell at all, no one knew what to use the thing for. So the boys put their heads together and invented grass seed, got a copyright on the word "lawn," put an ad in Better Homes and Gardens, and they were off and running.
They just sat back, sold grass seed, then invented fertilizer, to make the grass grow faster, put out more ads, to make sure that every home needed a green lawn, for the kids to play on, to fertilize, to water, to weed, everyone had to have one. They sold everyone a push mower, when they had them all sold, they put a motor on one, and sold everyone one of those.
Then they saw a helicopter one day, new type of mower, no more reels, circular blade, easier to make, can even do one with an electric motor, and of course, they sold extension cords.
Started a whole new industry, companies cutting grass in the summertime, pushing snow in the winter, year round work.
When you think about it, a lawn is stupid. Buy grass seed or sod, get it to grow, then a mower to cut in back, then seed and fertilize, mow more, rake, it never ends. And, when you get tired of doing it, you pay people to do it for you. It was a diabolical plot old Charlie Mower had.
Years later, he retired in Las Vegas, had gravel in his yard. Was he smart, or what?
Old lawn mowers
