THE MCINTOSH APPLE
Canada's "Big Apple"

More than 3,000,000 McIntosh apple trees flourish throughout North America, all of them literally stemming from one single tree discovered in undergrowth on a farm near Prescott, Ontario, in 1811.

The discovery was made by John McIntosh, who, before 1800, came to Canada as a teenager after quarrelling with his Scottish Highland parents then living in the beautiful Mohawk Valley of upper state New York. John took up farming in Canada, married, and eventually swapped his property for a small farm owned by his brother-in-law at Dundela, Ontario.

Standing, circa 1890, next to the original McIntosh extensively propagated the McIntosh is the only variety grown in all five apple-growing districts in Canada [Ontario Ministry of Agriculture & Food]

While clearing land at Dundela he discovered several young apple trees on his property. As apples were important to pioneers — it was one of the few fruits available to them — he carefully transplanted the trees to a garden near the pioneer home he had built on his property. One tree produced a particularly red, sweet-tasting, crisp apple.

Originally called Granny Apples, they were enjoyed by friends and neighbours, but no one knew how to produce more trees like that one, a situation that challenged John’s son, Allen, born in 1815 as the ninth child in a family of 13. He learned that planting the seed from the core would not produce the same fruit nor could bees carrying pollen.

While still young, Allen became a weekend Methodist preacher or circuit rider, preaching in and around Dundela and nearby communities. As his reputation grew, he was invited by homesteaders in more distant settlements to preach to them. Invariably he packed not only religious tracts but also homegrown apples. This led to discussions about apple trees and rumours that there were itinerant Yankees roaming the countryside who knew how to grow good trees.

By chance a farmhand hired at the McIntosh homestead in 1835 was one of them, and Allen, discovering this, quickly put him to work. He carefully watched him cut small tree branches called scions and tightly tie or graft them to another apple tree. The farm hand also showed him a second method — budding — in which he could remove a bud from the host tree and insert it into another branch of an entirely separate tree.

McIntosh variety makes up nearly half of Canada's annual crop of apples. [Ontario Ministry of Agriculture & Food]

That winter Allen, along with his father and a younger brother, Sandy, inserted the scions into crab apple seedlings, packed them in sawdust, and stored them for planting that spring. He also sold some to neighbours and took others in his saddle bags on his weekend jaunts to other settlements where he not only conducted prayer meetings but also sold seedlings and taught farmers how to graft so that they could grow these trees for themselves.

When Allen took over his father’s farm in 1845, Sandy became the salesman and teacher of grafting techniques throughout much of Eastern Ontario. By 1867 — the year of Confederation — a few farmers had given up mixed farming to develop apple orchards and some prospered for the next two decades from the sale of what became known as McIntosh Reds.

The survival of the variety and its ultimate popularity almost 200 years after its chance discovery was the long-time effort of several generations of the McIntosh family. Sandy’s son, Harvey Austin, expanded the small nursery by marketing thousands of trees throughout the province and into the northern United States. By 1910 the McIntosh had reached British Columbia and was the parent used in breeding such varieties as Cortland, Joyce, and Melba. Dr. P.A. McIntosh of Spencerville, Ontario, carried on the nursery activities by sending trees to England, Scotland, and Rhodesia.

When a fire swept through the McIntosh farm in 1895, Allen managed to nurse back to health the badly singed original tree that was still producing apples. In fact the tree outlived him. Allen died in 1899, but the tree continued to bear fruit until 1906. It was left standing as a memorial to a true Canadian ambassador.