AUTHORS' PREFACE 



(Abstract) 



WE have had some difficulty in fixing the limits within which we 

 should confine ourselves in this work. It is not always easy to 

 define exactly what a " vegetable" is, and to decide upon the plants 

 to which the term is applicable and those to which it is not. In 

 this respect, however, we thought it better to be a little over- 

 indulgent rather than too strict, and, accordingly, we have admitted 

 into the present work not only the plants which are generally 

 grown for use in the green state, but also those which are merely 

 employed for flavouring others, and even some which at the present 

 day have, for the most part, disappeared from the kitchen garden, 

 but which we find mentioned as table vegetables in old works on 

 horticulture. We have, however, restricted our list to the plants 

 of temperate and cold climates, omitting the vegetables which are 

 exclusively tropical, with which we are not sufficiently familiar, 

 and which, moreover, would interest only a limited class of readers. 

 We made it a point to determine the botanical identity of 

 every plant mentioned in this volume by giving the scientific 

 name of the species to which it belongs. Before commencing the 

 description of any form of cultivated vegetable, we are careful to 

 state, with strict exactness, the place in botanical classification 

 occupied by the wild type from which that form is considered to 

 have sprung. Accordingly, we commence every article devoted 

 to one or more cultivated varieties, by giving a botanical name to 

 all the subjects included in the article a name which indicates 

 the genus and species to which all these forms, more or less 

 modified by cultivation, should be referred. For instance, all the 

 varieties of garden Peas, numerous as they are, are referred to 

 Pisum sativum, L. ; those of the Beet-roots to Beta vulgaris, L. ; 

 and similarly in the case of other plants. 



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