96 THE PEACHES OF NEW YORK 



But the obstacle which most effectually blocks the use of Onderdonk's 

 classification in the systematic arrangement of peaches is the brood of 

 hybrid seedling peaches annually brought forth by fruit-growers. No 

 doubt the classification is workable, to a degree, with the type-varieties and 

 a few carefully selected progeny but after the practical peach-grower, 

 with a devil-may-care attitude toward classification, crosses and recrosses 

 the types, the several races become hopelessly interlocked. The char- 

 acters chiefly used by Onderdonk, as has been said, are fluctuating variations 

 and these do not descend according to Mendelian laws. And so the great 

 out-pouring of varieties during the past quarter-century has literally 

 swamped a classification which served only fairly well when it included 

 but the pioneer varieties. In the trituration of the thousand and more 

 varieties of peaches now going on, the Onderdonk classification will be less 

 and less useful. 



In dismissing the Onderdonk scheme as having but limited application 

 for classificatory purposes, acknowledgment is made that it serves other 

 purposes very well. It calls attention to the history of the peach; it shows 

 that racial strains of the peach are arising; it brings out valuable informa- 

 tion in regard to hardiness and the rest-period of peaches; it oft'ers instances 

 of modification of the peach by climate; and it shows the capacity of the 

 peach to vary. For thus illuminating the natural history of the peach, 

 more especially the climatology of the peach, pomology is much indebted 

 to Onderdonk and Price. 



A key to varieties of peaches. — A natural classification of peaches to 

 show the relationships of varieties is seemingly impossible. The deluge 

 of new varieties, which growers continue with cheerful optimism to pour 

 out, overwhelms the classifier with difficulties. About the best that can 

 be done is to arrange varieties, for convenience in identifying, according 

 to some of the artificial systems of a century ago when the cult of the 

 classifier was at its height. These were really synoptical keys rather than 

 biological classifications. If such a key is to be used very generally by 

 fruit-growers, only characters of the fruit are admissible, thereby attain- 

 ing necessary simplicity and providing that all data can be had at one 

 examination. 



The first division of a synoptical key would of course be founded on 

 the absence or presence of pubescence on the skin ; these two great divisions 

 would then be separated into freestones and clingstones; these, in turn, 

 divided in accordance to color of flesh — white, yellow, red; the Peento and 



