 But at the time, the only way to keep your tapas verde cut short and smooth was with a scythe. Cutting grass evenly with a scythe was labor-intensive, and cutting and sweeping required great skill and thus was very expensive, although even the wealthy made use of natural lawn mowing by grazing animals. But the practicality of lawns for common houses, the visceral desire for which some scientists claim may have been derived from ancient origins in Africa, where expenses of low-lying turf grass allowed humans to be able to spot both prey and predators,