lives, and even leave it as a legacy to his posterity. His extraordinary
gains arise from the high price which is paid for his private labour. They
properly consist in the high wages of that labour. But as they are repeated
upon every part of his stock, and as their whole amount bears, upon that
account, a regular proportion to it, they are commonly considered as
extraordinary profits of stock.

Such enhancements of the market price are evidently the effects of
particular accidents, of which, however, the operation may sometimes last
for many years together.

Some natural productions require such a singularity of soil and situation,
that all the land in a great country, which is fit for producing them, may
not be sufficient to supply the effectual demand. The whole quantity brought
to market, therefore, may be disposed of to those who are willing to give
more than what is sufficient to pay the rent of the land which produced
them, together with the wages of the labour and the profits of the stock
which were employed in preparing and bringing them to market, according to
their natural rates. Such commodities may continue for whole centuries
together to be sold at this high price ; and that part of it which resolves
itself into the rent of land, is in this case the part which is generally
paid above its natural rate. The rent of the land which affords such
singular and esteemed productions, like the rent of some vineyards in France
of a peculiarly happy soil and situation, bears no regular proportion to the
rent of other equally fertile and equally well cultivated land in its
neighbourhood. The wages of the labour, and the profits of the stock
employed in bringing such commodities to market, on the contrary, are seldom
out of their natural proportion to those of the other employments of labour
and stock in their neighbourhood.