The opening years of the Nineteenth Century mark the first attempts
at classifying peaches. By 1818 as many as three classificatory
schemes had been proposed, all being modifications of the same general
arrangement. July 7, 1818, John Robertson read a paper on classifying
peaches and nectarines before the Horticultural Society of London.
Later, this was printed in the Transactions of the Society[183]
together with a classification by M. Poiteau from the _Bon Jardinier_
and another by Count Lelieur from his _Pomone Francaise_. In January,
1824, George Lindley read before the same society a classification
which was but an extension of the older arrangements.[184]
Robertson separated peaches into true peaches and nectarines and
these in turn into Classes, Divisions and Sub-divisions. He founded
the two classes on the presence or absence of glands; for each of his
classes he made two divisions distinguished by the size and color
of the flowers; each of the four divisions is once redivided into a
sub-division in which the flesh parts from the stone and another in
which the flesh adheres to the stone. The two French writers use the
same characters but found their second division on the adherence or
non-adherence of the flesh to the stone; their third on the size of
the flower but making three partitions as to size; and their fourth
on the presence or absence of glands which they divide into globose
and reniform. Lindley created three classes dependent on the presence
or absence and the character of the glands and the character of the
serrations; three divisions of each class in accordance as to whether
the flowers are large, medium-sized or small; two sub-divisions of each
division to agree with the presence or absence of down; and for each
sub-division two sections, one for clingstones and one for melters.
This was the age of the classifier and other classifications, all
similar in plan, rapidly followed in England, France, Belgium and
Germany. No one at this time seems to have attempted a natural
classification of peaches.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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