  We consider transport through a one-dimensional conductor subject to an
external periodic potential and connected to non-interacting leads (a "Mott
quantum wire"). For the case of a strong periodic potential, the conductance is
shown to jump from zero, for the chemical potential lying within the
Mott-Hubbard gap, to the non-interacting value of 2e^2/h, as soon as the
chemical potential crosses the gap edge. This behavior is strikingly different
from that of an optical conductivity, which varies continuously with the
carrier concentration. For the case of a weak potential, the perturbative
correction to the conductance due to Umklapp scattering is absent away from
half-filling.
