When I was a kid they mowed the roads with JD tractors that were the size of Ford N's.  They had a sickle bar about 5 or 6 feet long.  They would park in our yard at night sometimes and I was fascinated with the little tractors.  Always after dad to buy one like them.  In those days the roads were mowed from the highway to the fences by men sitting out in the open.
Somewhere it all changed.  Now they sit in air conditioned cabs on tractors suitable for farming hundreds of acres, tractors costing thousands of dollars.  They no longer cut in the ditches, just a pass along the highway.

And they used to pick up dead animals on the road, now raccoons, cats, big deer, opossums, dogs etc. lay for days and weeks rotting on the road and stinking up the neighborhoods.