On 24 Feb, 09:30, Fred wrote:
On Fri, 22 Feb 2008 10:31:51 -0800 (PST), Rod

wrote:
if there's a mat of vegetation like brambles or
long grass it just gets wrapped round and drags the machine along at a
great rate of knots. With the big machine the wheels are in charge and
they control the forward speed unless the rotor gets hold of something
really nasty.

Thanks. But in my case I have already cleared the ground of brambles
and grass, so do I need the big one? The only thing I haven't done yet
is dig it all over. I've started but not got far; that's why I'm
looking at these

Yes, if you haven't dug out the roots. There's most likely to be a
tough mat of bramble, nettle and grass roots and it's hell to dig
through and hard work for small machines. As I said previously that's
what you want the powerful machine for, from then on you should be
able to cope easily enough with handwork and some spraying of
uncropped areas when the weeds have sufficient foliage for the spray
to work on.