The fruits, however, furnish by far the best characters upon which to found a classification of peaches. The simplest classification of peaches begins by separating them into smooth-skinned and pubescent sorts; each of these divisions is redivided into clingstones and freestones; these four groups may then be separated into yellow-fleshed, white-fleshed and red-fleshed peaches; still further, most, not all, of the twelve groups made in the first three divisions, separate into round, flat or beaked peaches. These are the major characters of the fruits, little influenced by cultivation or environment, after which there are many minor characters such as size, shape, color, quality and season, all very responsive to changed conditions, that help to describe definitely the many varieties of _Prunus persica_. The most variable of the minor characters is shape, all peaches tending to lose rotundity in southern climates and to become oblong and beaked. The length and quantity of the pubescence on peaches vary considerably in different soils--the warmer and lighter the soil, the less pubescence. The skin adheres closely to the flesh in some varieties; in others it is non-adherent. The characters found in the stones of the many species of Prunus are of great value in determining species but they help but little in determining the horticultural varieties of any one species. The stones of the peach do vary, however, very materially in size, shape, grooves and ridges, pitting and in characteristics at base and apex. The color-plates in this text illustrate these differences very well. One may generalize and say that the stones of the freestones are more deeply furrowed and that the sides are smoother than in the clingstones. The characters of the peach are set forth on the opposite page by reproducing a description as made at this Station in describing a variety for _The Peaches of New York_. Such a description is, however, but a skeleton, as dead as dry bones, unless a living picture of the variety be made by filling out and covering the skeleton with ample remarks made as the describer studies the plant in the field. [Illustration: PEACH] A more detailed discussion of the horticultural and botanical characters of the peach logically follows here. PRUNUS PERSICA Stokes.