July in Hodgdon smells like cut hay and warm gravel, and the daylight hangs on until nearly nine, which is generous of it. Merritt Property Services LLC uses every hour of that — mowing the wide lawns that open onto field edges, trimming close around the barn corners and posts, hauling brush and yard debris off before it settles in for good. Out toward Cary Lake and South Hodgdon the properties run big and the mowing lines run long, the kind of pass where you can watch the color change behind you. Spring cleanup here means getting the sand and the winter's broken twigs out of the grass; autumn means beating the first hard freeze. It is straightforward work, and a clean-cut property in this country reads for a quarter mile.