340 Report oF THE HorticuLTURAL DEPARTMENT OF THE 
of suitability to a region. It is worth while to consider these 
groups, their formation and adaptations, somewhat more closely 
than we have done with the varieties. 
THE ADAPTATIONS OF GROUPS @fekt pers 
Our varieties of apples have descended from the wild apple. 
That the apple now varies, sometimes in one direction and some- 
times in another, can not be denied; and so it has done since the 
first apple. Now, variations eventually mean varieties. Thus 
we have come to have a great number of varieties of apples, 714 
of which are described in this bulletin. But the differences or 
gradations between varieties are not equal. Many varieties closely 
resemble each other while the differences between others are so 
great that they might almost belong to different species. There are, 
too, many missing grades. By recognizing these unequal degrees 
of likeness we may divide our cultivated varieties of apples into 
natural groups putting those which resemble each other together. 
Such a classification ought to become a formulation of varieties 
into groups in accordance with their blood relationships in the 
descent from the common ancestor. 
Botanical classification has -searched out the relationships which 
the structure of the apple plant and fruit indicate and has ex- 
pressed them by dividing the apple into several large groups, 
species. It is the office of pomological classification to subdivide 
such of these botanical species as are of value to the cultivator 
into smaller groups for the greater convenience of the pomologist. 
Chief of the species with which the fruit-grower is concerned is 
Pyrus malus composed of a thousand or more of our best known 
varieties. As has been said, many of these varieties greatly 
resemble each other and these may be put together in large groups, 
as the Fameuse, Baldwin, Ben Davis, Oldenburg, and Winesap 
groups. Or, in some cases, the variety may be subdivided; thus 
we have distinct strains of the Baldwin, the Twenty Ounce, the 
Gravenstein, the Fameuse and the Wealthy. 
It is worth remembering as an indication of the present trend 
of pomology that when the domestication of plants began, interest 
centered entirely around the species. There were no varieties 
