On Sep 25, 9:31 pm, wrote:
I am looking at giving a gift of a lawnmower to a first time home
purchaser. I can fully remember my first house and how relatives
were very generous in giving us the help we needed in establishing
a nice home. It's now my turn to be generous so hopefully I can get
some first hand knowledge from the people of this group. Here are
the details.

The property is four acres in size and hilly. It is in a northern
climate and has a long driveway.

So.........I need a riding mower that can have a optional snow plow
or blower attached to it. I favor hydrostatic drives over standard
transmissions and because of the hills the mower should have a low
center of gravity.

I have never owned a riding mower myself so fill me in on what may be
a good choice and let me know what to stay away from.

Thanks.

That is very nice of you. I would recomend a SCAG zero turn.
http://www.scag.com/. 4 acres is quite a bit.

Depending on the slope you may want to get a walk behind instead with
a dolly if there is real steep terrain. What is a dolly? A dolly is a
small trailler platform that you stand on and that the mower pulls. I
have seen "pros" do pretty steep slops at the IBM corporate HQ in
Armonk, NY. The mower tips, but that is O.K. because you are standing
up on the dolly.

There are special steep slope mowers also:

http://www.kutkwick.com/superslopemaster.htm

http://www.hustlerturfequipment.com/...e/ATZPage.html

Note in each case the important thing is to have ROLLOVER protection.
This usually consists of a steel frame and / or bar that will stop the
mower crushing the driver in the event of a roll over. The SCAG zero
turns all have roll over bar protection available and I would
recommend getting that.

Best, Mike.