All Prices listed are in Canadian Funds. Canadian residents to add 5% GST. Shipping charges will be added. U.S. clients will be billed in U.S. funds at the current rate of exchange.
MORTON, John C. (Chalmers). A Cyclopedia of Agriculture, Practical and Scientific; In Which the Theory, the Art, and the Business of Farming, Are Thoroughly and Practically Treated. By Upwards of Fifty of the Most Eminent Practical and Scientific Men of the Day. Edited by...
Glasgow: Blackie & Son, 1856. Two volumes bound in four. Reprint (first published in 1855). Tall 8vo., bound in full contemporary dark green morocco, raised bands, elaborate gilt compartments, decorative borders in gilt & blind on the boards, inner dentelles gilt, all edges gilt, with ‘SHOTOVER' stamped in gilt on the upper boards, xliv, 486; 487-1022; (2), (1)-548; 549- 1172pp. double columns (with an error in pagination in volume four (volume two) with pp. 529- 628 eliminated as issued. However, this is complete as issued, the collation is correct, and this is not lacking text). With 51 engraved plates and other illustrations in the text. Some foxing to the plates, ownership signature on the front free e/paper, a little minor rubbing to extremities but in fact this is an about fine copy in an attractive full morocco binding. While we have not been able to absolutely ascertain the origin of the "SHOTOVER" stamped on the upper boards, it seems probable that at one point that this work was part of the library of Shotover Park, the 18th-century manor house, farm and park in Oxfordshire.
John Chalmers Morton [1821-1888], Scottish writer on agriculture. After completing his education by attending lectures by David Low at the University of Edinburgh, he assisted his father at the Whitfield Example Farm and joined the English Agricultural Society. In 1838 he was the founding editor of the Agricultural Gazette, which required him to relocate to London. In 1854 Morton was appointed to Low's position as a lecturer at Edinburgh when he retired. Morton was a prolific author about agriculture beginning with his editing of the above title, first published in 1855. The Cyclopedia was very well received with the reviewer for the London Economist noting "A more comprehensive work on British Agriculture, and one uniting so completely the practical and scientific knowledge of our best agriculturalists, has never before appeared." He also wrote the New Farmer's Almanac (1856-1870), A Handbook of Dairy Husbandry (1860), and he edited and contributed to Handbooks of the Farm (1881-4). Morton was also a frequent contributor to the journal of the Royal Agricultural Society. (ODNB; Allibone).