Letter: All that effort to grow pretty lawns?

I laugh to myself when I read concerns in the paper about overuse of fertilizer [“A fertilizer tax could alter the landscape,” Letters, June 15].

My maternal grandfather emigrated from Italy in the early 1900s. In Italy, he was a farmer who had no formal education. When he arrived in America, he was surprised at the number of people who had lawns. He would say, “You have to feed it. You have to water it. You have to cut it. And then, you throw it away?”

Soil to Grandpa was designed by God to grow food! Yes, it required work and some expense, but the reward was delicious, healthy food for the family!

I laughed at his thinking when I was a child. I no longer do so.

Thomas Focone,

Stony Brook