b'Perhaps thats why Americas founding fathers, notwithstanding their inability to reconcile slavery with their democratic ideals, considered farming and farmers vital to democracy. 22Over the years, the founders have been invoked by almost every politician and every political movement across the whole spectrum from left to right, writes Andrea Wulf, author of Founding Gardeners, tracing the central role of agriculture in the early vision of America as an independent, agrarian republic. Now, maybe, its time for gardeners and environmentalists to claim their stake in the ideals that formed this nation. Wulf provides some fodder:Franklin listed in 1769 the three ways by which a nation might acquire wealth, and gave his opinion on each: The first is by War . . . This is Robbery. The second by Commerce which is generally Cheating. The third by Agriculture the only honest Way. . .Colonists began to equate home production and agriculture with the upholding of domestic liberty. . .Agriculture and the independent small-scale farmer were, in their [the founding fathers] eyes, the building blocks of the new nation. . .Todays slowly changing attitude toward local produce, home-grown vegetables and inner-city gardening in the United States 22 They also harbored deep misgivings about political parties. In The Founding Fathers Feared Political Factions Would Tear the Nation Apart, Sarah Pruitt writes: Today, it may seem impossible to imagine the U.S. govern-ment without its two leading political parties, Democrats and Republicans. But in 1787, when delegates to the Constitutional Convention gathered in Philadelphia to hash out the foundations of their new government, they entirely omitted political parties from the new nations founding document. This was no accident. The framers of the new Constitution desperately wanted to avoid the divisions that had ripped England apart in the bloody civil wars of the 17th century. Many of them saw partiesor factions, as they called themas corrupt relics of the monarchical British system that they wanted to discard in favor of a truly democratic government. (https://www.history.com/news/founding-fathers-political-parties-opinion) 153'