From the Living Museum
McIntosh
- Origin
- McIntosh family farm, Ontario, Canada, around 1811
- Era
- c. 1811
- Type / use
- Dessert · Fresh eating
From the ArchiveFilm
Watch its story
Canada’s Apple
A short narrated history of McIntosh, told through the archive illustrations of our apple collection.
Illustrations: Amanda Almira Newton (1911) and Deborah Griscom Passmore (1909), USDA Pomological Watercolor Collection, National Agricultural Library (public domain). Narrated with a synthetic voice.
Watch on YouTubeHistory & Stories
The classic North American dessert apple and parent of a huge family of later varieties (Empire, Cortland, Macoun, etc.). Bright red fruit with tender, juicy, aromatic white flesh and a distinctive perfume. Unique for its enormous genetic and cultural influence on 20th-century North American apple growing, despite its scab susceptibility and relatively short storage.
Folklore & Name
Discovered on the McIntosh family farm in Ontario around 1811. Became the classic North American dessert apple and parent of a huge modern family. Simple family-name origin for one of the most influential apples in history.
Digging into the History
Below my own notes, here is what the old fruit books and today’s collections record about this apple, kept apart from the stories people tell.
What we know
McIntosh began as a chance seedling on John McIntosh's farm at Dundela, in Dundas County, Ontario. The Canadian Encyclopedia says he found it in 1811 in an overgrown part of his orchard; the UK National Fruit Collection gives the date as 1796 1,2. Sources agree that his son Allan propagated it. S.A. Beach's The Apples of New York (1905) says Allan McIntosh "began the propagation of this variety in the nursery about 1870" 3. The Canadian Encyclopedia says he was selling trees locally by 1835 and that it entered commercial production as "McIntosh Red" in 1870 1.
Its parentage is not known for certain; the National Fruit Collection records it as "Fameuse or Saint Lawrence x Unknown" 2. Its own children include Empire and Spartan 2,1. The Canadian Encyclopedia says the first tree, harmed by a fire, finally died in 1906, and a historic marker now stands at the spot 1.
The competing accounts
- The Canadian Encyclopedia 1: John McIntosh found the seedling in 1811 in an overgrown part of his orchard at Dundela, Ontario; his son Allan was selling trees by 1835.
- UK National Fruit Collection 2: dates the find to 1796.
- S.A. Beach, 1905 3: Allan McIntosh began propagating it in the nursery about 1870, the year it went into commercial production as McIntosh Red 1.
Most likely (our judgment, not a certainty): found by John McIntosh around 1811. Canada's national reference work gives that date, and the two dates may reflect when he took over the land versus when he found the tree, though we have not confirmed that. Both accounts agree on the farm and the family.
What we think: stories & traditions
Canada's national apple. It is often called that, and the encyclopedia uses the phrase too 1. It is less a fact than a measure of affection.
The computer. The Canadian Encyclopedia tells how an Apple Computer employee, Jef Raskin, named his project after his favorite apple in 1979, and the spelling was later changed to "Macintosh" because of an existing trademark 1. So one farm seedling in Upper Canada ended up as the name of a famous computer.
1796 or 1811? Respected sources give both dates for the find, and we don't know which is right 1,2.
Sources
- Edwinna von Baeyer, "McIntosh Apple," The Canadian Encyclopedia (2019, edited 2026). www.thecanadianencyclopedia.ca/en/article/mcintosh-apple
- UK National Fruit Collection, "McIntosh." www.nationalfruitcollection.org.uk/full2.php?id=3874&fruit=apple
- S.A. Beach, The Apples of New York, Vol. 2 (Albany: J.B. Lyon, 1905), "McIntosh," pp. 132–134. archive.org/details/applesofnewyork02beacrich/page/132
Curious about McIntosh?
Email us at drgoss@honeytreeorchard.com.