48 SYSTEMATIC POMOLOGY. 



III. 



CLASSIFICATIOK 



Good autkorities estimate that there are more than ten thou- 

 sand varieties of our commonly cultivated fruits in America. 

 In the study of this vast number of forms we must have some 

 means of setting them in order and of showing their relations 

 to each other. An assembling of kinds, and of special kinds 

 under the more general, is common to all sciences, and in fact 

 to all subjects of study. In natural history this assembling of 

 forms in groups and grades is called Taxonomy, from the Greek 

 meaning arrangement and law, and this term may be used in 

 horticulture; but the simpler term, classification, having the 

 same general meaning, is more common and therefore we use it. 



The Foundation foe Classification. — The foundation for 

 Classification in horticulture is the same as in biological natural 

 history; i. e., botany and zoology. It comes, primarily, from 

 the property possessed by animals and plants of propagating 

 their kind from generation to generation in a series, and from 

 the circumstance that there are many kinds of these series of 

 individuals with greatly varied and unequal degrees of resem- 

 blance. The fact that the gradations are in nowise equal, and 

 that there are many, many missing grades is fundamental, and 

 we may say that this recognition of the unequal degrees of like- 

 ness among individuals is the foundation of classification. 



In a slightly different sense it may be said that the theory 

 of evolution or the descent of forms from a common ancestor 



