exceeding the cost of production. And this is owing to the
greatness of the competition for such wine, compared with the
scantiness of its supply; which confines the use of it to so
small a number of persons, that they are able, and rather than go
without it, willing, to give an excessively high price. But if
the fertility of these lands were increased, so as very
considerably to increase the produce, this produce might so fall
in value as to diminish most essentially the excess of its price
above the cost of production. While, on the other hand, if the
vineyards were to become less productive, this excess might
increase to almost any extent.

The obvious cause of these effects is, that in all
monopolies, properly so called, whether natural or artificial,
the demand is exterior to, and independent of, the production
itself. The number of persons who might have a taste for scarce
wines, and would be desirous of entering into a competition for
the purchase of them, might increase almost indefinitely, while
the produce itself was decreasing; and its price, therefore,
would have no other limit than the numbers, powers, and caprices,
of the competitors for it.

In the production of the necessaries of life, on the
contrary, the demand is dependent upon the produce itself; and
the effects are, in consequence, widely different. In this case,
it is physically impossible that the number of demanders should
increase, while the quantity of produce diminishes, as the
demanders only exist by means of this produce. The fertility of
soil, and consequent abundance of produce from a certain quantity
of land, which, in the former case, diminished the excess of