At least the law allowed him to use it as such.

When he was a boy, there was a fairly prosperous race of peasants settled here, tilling the soil, paying him rent for permission to do so, and making enough out of it to satisfy his large wants and their own narrow needs without working themselves to death.

But my grandfather was a shrewd man.

He perceived that cows and sheep produced more money by their meat and wool than peasants by their husbandry.

So he cleared the estate.