g Benjamin Franklin [1784
The agriculture and fisheries of the United States
are the great sources of increasing wealth. He that
puts a seed into the earth is recompensed, perhaps,
by receiving forty out of it; and he who draws a fish
out of our water, draws up a piece of silver.
Let us (and there is no doubt but we shall) be
attentive to these, and then the power of rivals, with
all their restraining and prohibiting acts, cannot much
hurt us. We are sons of the earth and seas, and,
like Antaeus in the fable, if, in wrestling with a Her-
cules, we now and then receive a fall, the touch of our
parents will communicate to us fresh strength and
vigor to renew the contest.
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