necessaries, the existence and increase of the demand, or of the
number of demanders, must depend upon the existence and increase
of these necessaries themselves; and the excess of their price
above the cost of their production must depend upon, and is
permanently limited by, the excess of their quantity above the
quantity necessary to maintain the labour required to produce
them; without which excess of quantity no demand could have
existed, according to the laws of nature, for more than was
necessary to support the producers.

It has been stated, in the new edition of the Wealth of
nations, that the cause of the high price of raw produce is, that
such price is required to proportion the consumption to the
supply.(8) This is also true, but it affords no solution of the
point in question. We still want to know why the consumption and
supply are such as to make the price so greatly exceed the cost
of production, and the main cause is evidently the fertility of
the earth in producing the necessaries of life. Diminish this
plenty, diminish the fertility of the soil, and the excess will
diminish; diminish it still further, and it will disappear. The
cause of the high price of the necessaries of life above the cost
of production, is to be found in their abundance, rather than
their scarcity; and is not only essentially different from the
high price occasioned by artificial monopolies, but from the high
price of those peculiar products of the earth, not connected with
food, which may be called natural and necessary monopolies.

The produce of certain vineyards in France, which, from the
peculiarity of their soil and situation, exclusively yield wine
of a certain flavour, is sold of course at a price very far