The peaches of New York

by U. P. Hedrick

In the first place the basis of Onderdonk's classification, as the names suggest, is regional variation. Each race stands for a region, the Peento included—for the name is very obviously Chinese. Incompleteness, then, is the first fault of this system for there are other regions in which races of peaches just as distinct as those named have developed: as, for examples, the Bokhara represents a hardy "Russian race;" Yellow Transvaal belongs to the very peculiar "South African race;" in the rich alluvial lands of Egypt, the "Egyptian race" has developed; still another regional race is found in the evergreen peach of the West Indies. We have no doubt that distinct races of peaches may have originated or will arise in the Canary Islands, Hawaii, New Zealand, Argentina, Chili and Mexico, to mention only countries spoken of in the foregoing pages. The Onderdonk classification can, of course, be extended to take in these new races, most of which are now represented in America, but eventually such a classification would become too cumbersome for use. It must not be overlooked that the Onderdonk classification should be doubled to apply to the nectarine, the other division of Prunus persica, which the present classification wholly ignores.

If the variations are stable, and all regions represented, the likenesses and differences brought about by regional environment may well be used by classifiers. But in the Onderdonk classification unstable variations due to climate are too largely used; as, differences in the succession of life-events, in the rest-period, in the capacity to endure heat and drought, and in minor modifications of organs, as color of foliage and shape of fruit. All of these are variations that fluctuate with even slight changes in the climate. We have said that this classification, though constantly referred to by northern fruit-growers, is not satisfactory in New York. Professor Price, too, found as he went northward that his classificatory scheme was less dependable. He says:[188] "Some of the distinctions made in this classification cannot be noticed with decisive clearness a few hundred miles farther north." A further objection to this regional classification of Onderdonk is that, in the numerous distinct peach-regions of America, new regional variations are arising which make it impossible to classify in accordance with characters that appeared before the peach came to America.

These "races" of Onderdonk and Price, then, by leaving out the peach-floras of many regions, are too exclusive, but it is no less true that they are too inclusive. Thus, the many varieties of the historic peach of western countries are put by the Onderdonk classification in the Persian race. So considered, this Persian race contains types quite as widely separated from each other as are the five "races" of the Onderdonk classification. In one great group are collected early, late, white-fleshed, yellow-fleshed, red-fleshed, globular, oblong, beaked, hardy and tender, vigorous and dwarfish peaches. Persian peaches run the whole gamut of peach-characters, the flatness of the Peento possibly excepted, and from the several hundred sorts a score of "races" might be made. These peaches are noted by Price and Onderdonk as requiring a long period of rest and as succeeding only in northern climates. Yet to this group belong the peaches of France, Spain and Italy; those of the warm parts of Africa, South America and Oceanica; and most of the varieties that thrive at the most northern limits of peach-growing in Europe and America.

The Onderdonk classification, in assigning zones to each of its five races, misleads peach-growers as to the hardiness of varieties. It makes the Peento and honey-flavored peaches much more tender in tree than they are. Varieties of both groups grow as far north as this Station and Waugh reports that one of the Peento varieties "was discovered growing thriftily and fruiting nicely on the grounds of the Massachusetts Agricultural College, Amherst, Massachusetts."[189] Of the score of descendants of the Honey, several are fruiting well on our grounds, four being illustrated and described in The Peaches of New York. If there were a demand for honey-flavored peaches, climate would not prevent their culture in New York.

The name used for the Peento group, if it be worth while keeping these peaches in a group, is inapt. It gives the impression that all, like Peento, are flat peaches—in fact Price several times so publishes them—whereas of the twenty-three sorts described by Hume,[190] though nearly all are seedlings of Peento, only Peento is flat. We must look upon the Peento as a peach-monster similar to the cleft peach, Emperor of Russia, the nippled peach, Teton de Venus, the Perseque with its teat-like protuberances, or the more familiar snow-white and blood-red varieties.

We are not able to see where the Peento group leaves off and the Honey group begins in the Onderdonk classification, though, since varieties of the Peentos have not fruited at Geneva and the several Honey-flavored peaches, though both thrifty in tree and fruitful, are possibly not typical, we ought not to be too critical. As we read the descriptions made by others, however, we are struck by the fact that there are more similarities than differences in the two groups and that the differences are rapidly disappearing through hybridization.

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 characters 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 information in regard to hardiness and the rest-period of peaches; it offers 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 attaining 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 honey-flavored peaches make necessary a division in regard to shape—globular, flat, beaked; a further separation into early, medium and late sorts could then be made. A great merit in this extremely simple classification is that the language of the layman fits it. As examples: Greensboro would follow the key from bottom to top—an early, round, white-fleshed, freestone peach; or Salwey, a late, round, yellow-fleshed, freestone peach. This key provides for seventy-two groups, fifty-four for the peach and eighteen for the nectarine, the latter having but the globular form. Other characters, of less general application in the key than those so far used, as size, flavor, adherence or non-adherence of the skin, suture, apex, and stone, could be used to carry this classification still further.