Useful Knowledge: Volume 2. Vegetables

Bingley, William, 1774-1823Project Gutenberg · United StatesDec 2019

2.8

Word count: 560K words
Chapters: 56

Summary

Project Gutenberg was the first provider of free electronic books, or eBooks. Michael Hart, founder of Project Gutenberg, invented eBooks in 1971 and his memory continues to inspire the creation of eBooks and related technologies today.Useful Knowledge: Volume 2. Vegetables by William BingleyAuthor: Bingley, William, 1774-1823,Language: English, Class: QH: Science: Natural history, Release Date: Sep 23, 2018

Editor's review

Useful Knowledge: Volume 2. Vegetables is a practical-knowledge reader from nineteenth-century British natural-history writing, devoted entirely to vegetables. Its value lies not in the precision of modern agronomy but in the way it shows how natural history and everyday knowledge were organized in the early modern period: it weaves plant observation, cultivation experience and practical information together in plain language and clear entries, bearing vivid marks of its era. For today's readers it is both a window onto nineteenth-century British gardening and natural-history interests and a useful text for English reading practice—organized in paragraphs and sections, with a moderate density of terminology, it is easy to work through section by section. Read it with a historical eye toward its classifications and claims, noting which observations still hold and which modern science has revised; that comparison is itself an enjoyable reading experience.

Who it's for

A good fit for

Readers interested in the history of natural history or gardening
Learners who want to practise reading popular science in English
Readers who enjoy nineteenth-century English prose and knowledge books
Teachers or enthusiasts in nature education who need historical material

Not a good fit for

Practical growers seeking modern vegetable-cultivation techniques
Readers expecting a systematic botany textbook or the latest research findings
People with weak English reading skills who are unwilling to look up words and background

Reading tips

Read in sections by entry or chapter, and take brief notes after each section.
Look up plant names and old classification terms before continuing.
Compare with modern botany or gardening sources and note the similarities and differences.
Treat the book as English popular-science reading material and work through a set amount each day.

About the publisher

Project Gutenberg United States · Founded in 1971

Project Gutenberg is a digital publishing project focused on public-domain ebooks. Its publishing direction centers on classic literary works whose copyright has expired, covering genres such as poetry, drama, fiction, and epic. Representative books include Lyrical Ballads by Wordsworth and Coleridge, Proust's Du côté de chez Swann, Shakespeare's Macbeth and The Complete Works of William Shakespeare, Homer's The Iliad, Dante's La Divina Comèdia: Purgatòri, Cervantes's The History of Don Quixote, Volume 2, and Grahame's The Wind in the Willows. Its author resources consist mainly of classic Western writers such as Wordsworth, Proust, Shakespeare, Homer, Dante, Cervantes, Grahame, and Tolstoy. Its publishing feature is the provision of freely accessible ebooks in EPUB and Kindle formats; it is not a traditional publisher, and publicly available information is limited.

FAQ

Is this book about modern vegetable-growing techniques?

No. It is a practical-knowledge reader written by a nineteenth-century author, reflecting the natural history and gardening understanding of its time rather than a modern agronomy manual. Readers should treat it as a historical text; some of its claims may no longer match modern scientific conclusions.

My English is average—will this book be very difficult?

The book is in English and belongs to the nineteenth-century knowledge-book style. Its sentence structure is relatively plain, but it involves plant names and period terminology. Readers with intermediate English can get through it with a dictionary, working through small sections at a time; it is not recommended for complete beginners.

Is this book suitable for studying botany?

It is not recommended as a botany textbook. Its classifications and statements carry the limitations of their era and are better used as supplementary reading in the history of natural history and gardening. If used for studying botany, it should be read alongside modern textbooks, taking care to distinguish historical claims from contemporary scientific conclusions.

Comments

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About the author

Bingley, William, 1774-1823 Author

William Bingley (1774–1823) is an English author about whose life very little has survived; public information is limited, and his nationality, education, and professional career cannot be reliably established. What can be confirmed is that four of his works are held in this collection, all of them informative books written for general readers. The three volumes of Useful Knowledge, devoted respectively to minerals, vegetables, and animals, introduce common natural objects in a systematic way, in plain and orderly prose that prizes clarity and readability. Travels in North America, From Modern Writers draws on the accounts of recent travellers to give English readers an overview of what was being reported about various parts of North America. These works suggest that he excelled at organising and popularising existing knowledge rather than advancing original theories, and that his style was practical and lucid, suited to introductory reading. Judging from the surviving titles, his contribution lies chiefly in compiling natural history and foreign geography into accessible volumes for ordinary readers of his day.