Darwin on the Grass, Alas

Conversation at the bus stop revolved around the recent and unexpected frost the night before. The commuters mostly chatted about nipped zucchini and black-edged geraniums, but one fellow gloated about the dormancy that the chill forced on a machine.

"That blasted lawnmower," he said. "I've seen the last of that sucker until next May. Yeah!"

It seems an odd situation. We Alaskans pride ourselves on not caring how they do it Outside, yet from Ketchikan to far north of reasonable, we struggle to force barely hardy turf grasses into producing exuberant greenswards. (For that matter, some of those folks Outside struggle even harder than we do to grow their velvety lawns. Water authorities in the desert Southwest are forever trying to convince residents that pebbles and cactus make better ground covers than do thirsty grasses, but with little luck.)

Why are people so willing to work for the doubtful pleasure of living on the best possible approximation of a putting green? Inspired by the smug comment of the suddenly mower-free commuter, I looked it up.

I found a brisk discussion of lawns in a reader-friendly book called "Why Do Clocks Run Clockwise? And Other Imponderables," by David Feldman. He thinks the human love of short, tidy grass might be closer to an obsession than a preference.

For example, Feldman found that in New Jersey, the most densely populated of the United States, fully a fifth of the land area was covered with turfgrass. As of 1987, if the average household lawn area had been planted with fruit trees and vegetables rather than grass, it could have contributed food worth $2000. Instead, lawns drain money from the householder's budget, typically to the tune of several hundred dollars a year for fertilizer, mower repairs, and other expenses necessary to keep the grasses short and green.

The economics of lawns apparently supports one set of theories about them. These theories, which might be called the sociologists' explanation, center on the history of lawns as status symbols. When the rich and powerful lived in castles, they set animals to graze on the surrounding lands. This kept the meat on the hoof close to the walls, so it could be brought to safety in case of attack (and could provision the garrison and the nobles in case of siege). It also kept the surrounding terrain cleared so invaders couldn't sneak up on the castle.

Soon the uncastled also coveted this mark of aristocracy, and lawn-like spaces came to surround far more humble abodes. Lawns as status symbols spread throughout the European colonies, and shortly covered spaces from Tasmania to Nova Scotia. By this reasoning, each home is truly a castle, or, at least, has castle-like grounds.

But this doesn't explain the more ancient and multi-cultural preference for lawns. According to Feldman, the early Maya and Aztecs had lawns in what is now Mexico, and the Chinese grew closely shorn grass around their homes at least five thousand years ago. He shares the view of John Falk of the Smithsonian Institution: it's in our genes.

Falk tested his theory by showing various groups worldwide photos of different landscapes, including their own. All groups said they'd prefer to live in savanna-like surroundings, even jungle-dwellers and city folk who'd never seen a savanna or a lawn.

The generally agreed-upon homelands of humankind lie in the region we call East Africa. There, the typical landscape is savanna, grass-covered plains punctuated with trees and islands of shrubs, dotted with occasional waterholes. For thousands upon thousands of years, our ancestors wandered this terrain, using trees for shelter and protection, visiting the water holes, and watching for big predators approaching through the grass. Thus, the shorter the grass, the better; fewer dangerous creatures could lurk in close-cropped grass. Our ancestors lived long enough to produce us because of the advantages of life on the lawn.