Rerwews. | 207 
Boutin Manure: being the Official Report of the Boutin 
Manure Company, Limited. Offices: 117 and 118 
Beadenhall street... Pp. 20. 
IN this report we have the whole process of Boutin 
Manuring laid before us, showing the great amount of 
success which has attended its use. This manure is com- 
posed of due proportions of several soluble salts, which by 
their action on the mineral constituents of the soil, develop 
about the seed certain fertilising principles, which otherwise 
would remain dormant were it not for this stimulating 
action, thereby rendering more assimilative the mineral 
portion of the soil. The action which is thus raised is able 
to renew its fertilising power during a succession of similar 
crops of equal extent from the same land. In proof of 
this latter assertion, M. Boutin has obtained from the same 
soil, during ten years, an uninterrupted series of fine crops 
of grain. 
In France an Official Commission has made experiments 
with this manure, and reported it without reserve, a com- 
plete success. 
Our object in noticing this manure is to bring it to the 
knowledge of our agriculturists, whom we strongly recom- 
mend to make a trial of its wonderful fertilising power in 
their next sowings, and there is not the slightest doubt 
whatever but that they will meet with the same reward as 
M. Boutin, viz., seeing their fields covered with crops such 
as they never before witnessed, this result being obtained 
by simply steeping the grain in this strong chemical manure 
thereby doing away with the present costly system. 
THE Peny,—its Construction anD Ussr.—The. split pen, now 
universally used by enlightened nations, is of great antiquity. It 
was used by the Egyptians in writing on the sheets produced from 
the papyrus, from the name of which our word paper is derived. 
It was made from a species of reed, which was prepared by a 
sweating process, induced by burial under fermenting manures, 
causing the reed to acquire hardness and elasticity, and drying 
the pith. These pens ars still in use in the East. Later, the 
quills of the swan, eagle, goose, and crow came into use as pens, 
and those of the goose, especially, are still largely used, notwith- 
standing the introduction of pens of steel, gold, and other metals. 
Goose-quills, when first plucked, are soft and tough, covered within 
and without with a membrane. They are dried in hot sand, 
