As the world's first comprehensive scientific and technological work on agriculture and handicraft production, Exploitation of the Works of Nature attaches great importance to theoretical elaboration rather than simple technical description, otherwise it is not much better than those recipes. Some experts believe that Exploitation of the Works of Nature is not only a representative technical book in China, but also in East Asia. It covers a wide range of technologies, which is unmatched by European technical books.
The most essential difference between Exploitation of the Works of Nature and recipes lies in the fact that the former is a scientific and technological work, while the latter is an operating procedure.