Landscape company goes publicIn 1998, Southern Tree & Landscape -- along with six similar firms -- went public on the NYSE to form Land Care USA. (This company was later acquired by Service Master, which merged it with TruGreen/ChemLawn.)Then, Braswell discovered an amazing Australian skid-steer product that launched him into a new career.Creation of Toro Dingo opens multiple marketsThe product -- a small utility loader -- allows its user to apply hydraulic power with a variety of attachments. Braswell brought the technology to the United States, then later sold the pioneer cable box rights to toro.compact hydraulic equipment, braswell saw, could be a way to serve many industries such as landscaping, fencing, nursery, scraper irrigation, utilities, construction, cable installation, rental and even roofing.

the old gray tractors--the result of a partnership that later dissolved into the separate ford and ferguson lines--revolutionized postwar scarifier farming. these classics have held up to time, held onto collectors'' cable black box hearts and held their value ever since.the roadside seller''s price was $1,795. that was about 2 1/2 times what the ford cost new in 1946. but it was also about the going rate at the time. so even though the tractor was older than me or my wife, melanie, we bought it on the spot after a test drive.that was in 1984, when we bought our land. we have used the old ford almost continuously ever scraper since. we never regretted scarifier the purchase. with a minimum of service and repairs--lots of grease, irregular zenith cable box oil changes, some new wiring and radiator hoses--the 2n has never failed us. equipped with a two-bottom plow, 5-foot rotary mower, disk harrow and scraper blade, it has done all we asked of it, everything from plowing scraper snow off of our 600-foot driveway to scarifier mowing or tilling the better part of our 20 acres, year after year. and all for less than what most suburbanites spend these days on a riding lawn mower.

"also, a dealer who sells large mowers and tractors probably already does business with a finance source like wells box fargo or sheffield. with finance opportunities in place -- plus single products that serve multiple fields -- he''s in a position to enter several industrial markets." what kind of guarantee comes with this?" i asked, suspiciously eyeing the few drops of oil on the pavement under the rear axle of an old gray ford tractor."well, none, actually," replied scraper the man who had it sitting out by the road with a for-sale sign. "what you see is what you get--where is, as is."the tractor in question was a 1946 ford 2n (see photo, scarifier page 103). the four-cylinder engine had been overhauled a few years earlier, he said. then an old pennsylvania-dutchman, who probably bought it new when truman was president, traded it in on a new kubota.

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