No one ought to be free to ruin his land as he pleases! It concerns the _State_.

"Manage your land decently--produce a proper amount of food--or out you go!" And I wouldn't have waited for war to say it! Ugh! that place!' And she thought with disgust of the choked and derelict fields, the ruined gates and fences, the deserted buildings she had just been wandering through.

After the death of an old miser, who, according to the tale she had heard in a neighbouring village, had lived there for forty years, with a decrepit wife, both of them horribly neglected and dirty, and making latterly no attempt to work the farm, a new tenant had appeared who would have taken the place, if the Squire would have rebuilt the house and steadings, and allowed a reasonable sum for the cleansing and recovering of the land.

But the Squire would do nothing of the kind.

He 'hadn't a farthing to spend on expensive repairs,' and if the new tenant wouldn't take the farm on the old terms, well, he might leave it alone.
The place had just been investigated by the County Committee, and a peremptory order had been issued.