Keeping up with a landscape of this nature requires a fair bit of work. This is made easier these days with an ever increasing armada of power equipment. And a modification to the types of gardening/landscaping. (I like shrubs for a reason)
In the 1870/1880’s it was a bit different. At that time there were a number of children around during the summer, usually six or seven.*
In addition to summer schooling and exploring all of the surrounding area, going as far as several towns away and hitching a ride back on a train, they were kept busy.
“There were chores which we were expected to do, and so we did them….On Saturday we were also required to rake the driveways and the many winding paths so as to have them look neatly cared for when Papa came up from New York on the evening train. We earned very good wages for that. Ten cents a week. And we had an extra privilege of earning more by digging dandelions from the lawn at ten cents a hundred, and nice long roots mind! Grandfather made us this offer and we were tremendously busy at it at every spare moment. But one day Wallace, who was the busiest digger of all of us, presented Grandfather with a heaping bushel basket full of thousands of dandelions. That was the end…as the suspicion that Wallace had gone far afield for those flourishing dandelions was strong…”
*The Ellsworth children: Helen Adelaide, Lucy, Bradford, Elizabeth; their cousin, Carl Davis; and the two Rood children, Wallace and Nan. The Roods were the family in charge of the farm.