692 
In Memoriam : 
writer well remembers the cheery exultation with which Mr. 
Morton announced, on the occasion of one of their earliest meet- 
ings, that he had just paid his fifty-first annual subscription. 
In 1843 he commenced the association with the Agricultural 
Gazette which was only to be terminated by death. It was no 
small compliment to a young man of twenty-three to be invited 
to start and direct a new paper ; but Mr. Morton was equal to 
the occasion, and threw the whole of his great energy into deve- 
loping the Gazette and making it the influential organ of agri- 
cultural opinion which it soon became. So devoted was he 
to its interests, that it is recorded of him that no less than 1,300 
consecutive weekly numbers of the pajDer were brought out 
without a single break under his personal supervision. From 
week to week for forty-five years he handled with a masterly 
pen all subjects connected with agricultural progress, at the 
same time eliciting from the ablest of his friendly contributors 
the details and lessons of their practical experiences. This was the 
great work of his life, and nobly was it performed to the last. 
His holidays were of the rarest and briefest. If he were 
cajoled into taking a rest from the work of his paper, he usually 
contrived to throw himself with even greater ardour into some 
new subject which he had encountered in his wanderings. His 
idea of resting his brain by a little harmless light literature — 
when he grudgingly allowed himself this relaxation — was to 
read several novels in the day. He was indeed a man of vehe- 
ment energy, who could not exist without strenuous work. 
In addition to his editorial functions, he was a constant con- 
tributor to this Jom-nal, and he found time moreover to perform 
the duties of an Inspector under the Land Commissioners. In 
the year 1855, when he was only 32 years old, Mr. Morton 
brought out, with the assistance of fifty of the most eminent 
scientific men of the day, his valuable and complete Encyclopaedia 
of Agriculture, which contains 2,200 double-columned pages, 
and is still the most complete work of the kind extant. In 
later life he schemed out and edited a series of seven admirable 
little Handbooks of the Farm, which were published by Messra. 
Bradbury Agnew & Co. between 1881 and 1884, and discussed 
the Cultivation of the Farm, its Live Stock and its Cultivated 
Plants, Farm and Estate Equipment, the Chemistry of Agricul- 
ture, and the Processes of Animal and Vegetable Life. 
Perhaps the most important extra piece of work which he 
ever undertook was the inquiry into the Pollution of Rivers and 
its remedy, for which a Koyal Commission was issued in tlie 
year 18G8. Mr. jMorton was one of the Commissioners, his 
colleagues being Sir William Deuison, K.O.B., and Professor i 
