It depends on how far back you go. Maybe an actual historian could chime in on dates, but by at least the 18th century one of the distinguishing hallmarks between “real rich” and “fake rich” was whether sheep, and the like, were what maintained your lawn or if you had dedicated human labor to scything and weeding.
But the lawn wasn’t unproductive, originally. It was being grazed by sheep and horses, which were higher value agricultural products.
It depends on how far back you go. Maybe an actual historian could chime in on dates, but by at least the 18th century one of the distinguishing hallmarks between “real rich” and “fake rich” was whether sheep, and the like, were what maintained your lawn or if you had dedicated human labor to scything and weeding.