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Unless you want to use it for rototilling, or other garden type work, or have a lot with a steep grade, my vote would be for the ZTR type mower. I used to mow about 3 acres of grass with a little rolling grade, a pond and some trees. For about 10yrs I used a 1949 Ford 8N tractor with a 72" Woods finish mower attached to the PTO. It did a good job but was slow and time consuming. Then I tried a JD 314 and it was a good machine, but then again slow and time consuming. I then decided I was tired of spending so much time mowing and something had to change. I bought a Wheel Horse (now Toro) 724Z mower with a 60" deck. Mowing was fun again. It reduced the mowing time by at least half, and hardly any trimming as the Z mower can get very close to everything. In the fall I used it to blow all the leaves into a pile that I could then put on a tarp and drag into the woods. I could have bought a bagger and front snow blade for it but didn't. I did have a lawn roller and a cart. When we sold our home I also sold the Z. It was about 10 yrs old and the only maintenance over the 10 yrs was change the oil/filter & lube the zerks, air filters, sparkplugs, chain tension adjustments and buy/sharpen blades as needed. It was never in the shop for repairs. The newer Z mowers don't use chains which makes maintenance easy. But you're talking more money. Check out the dealers for used. You can tell if they've been taken care of and most have hour meters. If you go for the lawn or garden tractor look for a cast iron front axle and not a steel one, and zerks for the spindles as the sealed ones usually go dry and are costly to replace. Sorry to be so wordy here, but I miss my Z.
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