Business: The Combleat Mower

The ideal lawn mower would be one that makes no noise, consumes no gasoline, emits no noxious fumes, does not rust when left out in the rain—and besides all that, is self-starting and fertilizes grass while cutting it. Anette van Dorp, 22, an enterprising agriculture student in Bonn, West Germany, concluded last year that such a machine already exists—only it is called a sheep. So she persuaded her mother Doris, the wife of a prosperous architect, to lend her $15,700, and last spring set up an ewe business named Gesellschaft fur Schafsverleih (free...