Karam,
I'm sure that this is up for discussion, but Tolkien seems to have felt about land management the same way that Wendell Berry does -- namely, a "third way" besides (a) the industrial rape of the land, and (b) the assumption that mankind is intrinsically a cancer to the earth, and that any given piece of land is always at its maximal potential when untouched by man.
Berry taught, contra both of these options, that man is to "husband" or "steward" the earth in a way that is maximally beneficial to both mankind and the land. That many pieces of land are brought to their maximal potential by husbanding them with regenerative agricultural practices. Practices which build rather than deplete topsoil. Agriculture which leaves the land richer for the next go-round.
These practices are not the most lucrative in the short term -- you can't build a factory-farm oligarchy on them -- but they're seen to be the most efficient in the long view, if you love your descendants more than you love yourself.
To paint the picture in Tolkien's terms:
An industrial approach to the land produces Mordor.
A wilderness-worship approach to the land produces Mirkwood.
Husbanding the land produces The Shire.
(...then again, The Shire seems even more special when you know that out there, somewhere, there are Mirkwoods to traverse and Mordors to defeat ;-) )
