An inquiry into the nature and causes of the wealth of

141

Adam Smith

the society becomes sufficient to provide food for the whole. The

other half, therefore, or at least the greater part of them, can be

employed in providing other things, or in satisfying the other wants

and fancies of mankind. Clothing and lodging, household furni-

ture, and what is called equipage, are the principal objects of the

greater part of those wants and fancies. The rich man consumes

no more food than his poor neighbour. In quality it may be very

different, and to select and prepare it may require more labour

and art; but in quantity it is very nearly the same. But compare

the spacious palace and great wardrobe of the one, with the hovel

and the few rags of the other, and you will be sensible that the

difference between their clothing, lodging, and household furni-

ture, is almost as great in quantity as it is in quality. The desire of

food is limited in every man by the narrow capacity of the human

stomach; but the desire of the conveniencies and ornaments of

building, dress, equipage, and household furniture, seems to have

no limit or certain boundary. Those, therefore, who have the com-

mand of more food than they themselves can consume, are always

willing to exchange the surplus, or, what is the same thing, the

price of it, for gratifications of this other kind. What is over and

above satisfying the limited desire, is given for the amusement of

those desires which cannot be satisfied, but seem to be altogether

endless. The poor, in order to obtain food, exert themselves to

gratify those fancies of the rich; and to obtain it more certainly,

they vie with one another in the cheapness and perfection of their

work. The number of workmen increases with the increasing quan-

tity of food, or with the growing improvement and cultivation of

the lands; and as the nature of their business admits of the utmost

subdivisions of labour, the quantity of materials which they can

work up, increases in a much greater proportion than their num-

bers. Hence arises a demand for every sort of material which hu-

man invention can employ, either usefully or ornamentally, in

building, dress, equipage, or household furniture; for the fossils

and minerals contained in the bowels of the earth, the precious

metals, and the precious stones.

Food is, in this manner, not only the original source of rent, but

every other part of the produce of land which afterwards affords

rent, derives that part of its value from the improvement of the

powers of labour in producing food, by means of the improve-

ment and cultivation of land.

Those other parts of the produce of land, however, which after-

wards afford rent, do not afford it always. Even in improved and

cultivated countries, the demand for them is not always such as to

afford a greater price than what is sufficient to pay the labour, and

replace, together with its ordinary profits, the stock which must

be employed in bringing them to market. Whether it is or is not

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142

The Wealth of Nations

such, depends upon different circumstances.

Whether a coal mine, for example, can afford any rent, depends

partly upon its fertility, and partly upon its situation.

A mine of any kind may be said to be either fertile or barren,

according as the quantity of mineral which can be brought from it

by a certain quantity of labour, is greater or less than what can be

brought by an equal quantity from the greater part of other mines

of the same kind.

Some coal mines, advantageously situated, cannot be wrought

on account of their barrenness. The produce does not pay the

expense. They can afford neither profit nor rent.

There are some, of which the produce is barely sufficient to pay

the labour, and replace, together with its ordinary profits, the stock

employed in working them. They afford some profit to the under-

taker of the work, but no rent to the landlord. They can be wrought

advantageously by nobody but the landlord, who, being himself

the undertaker of the work, gets the ordinary profit of the capital

which he employs in it. Many coal mines in Scotland are wrought

in this manner, and can be wrought in no other. The landlord will

allow nobody else to work them without paying some rent, and

nobody can afford to pay any.

Other coal mines in the same country, sufficiently fertile, can-

not be wrought on account of their situation. A quantity of min-

eral, sufficient to defray the expense of working, could be brought

from the mine by the ordinary, or even less than the ordinary

quantity of labour: but in an inland country, thinly inhabited,

and without either good roads or water-carriage, this quantity could

not be sold.

Coals are a less agreeable fuel than wood: they are said too to be

less wholesome. The expense of coals, therefore, at the place where

they are consumed, must generally be somewhat less than that of

wood.

The price of wood, again, varies with the state of agriculture,

nearly in the same manner, and exactly for the same reason, as the

price of cattle. In its rude beginnings, the greater part of every

country is covered with wood, which is then a mere incumbrance,

of no value to the landlord, who would gladly give it to any body

for the cutting. As agriculture advances, the woods are partly cleared

by the progress of tillage, and partly go to decay in consequence of

the increased number of cattle. These, though they do not in-

crease in the same proportion as corn, which is altogether the ac-

quisition of human industry, yet multiply under the care and pro-

tection of men, who store up in the season of plenty what may

maintain them in that of scarcity; who, through the whole year,

furnish them with a greater quantity of food than uncultivated

nature provides for them; and who, by destroying and extirpating

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