In the spring of 1811, John McIntosh stumbled upon a handful of apple tree seedlings while clearing land near Prescott, Ontario where he planned to establish a farm.
Instead of tossing the tiny trees onto a pile of brush that would later be burned he transplanted them to a location closer to his home.
By the following year all but one of the trees had died. He nursed it slowly grew, eventually producing a red, sweet and crisp fruit with a tart taste. This became the McIntosh Red so named because of the family’s name and the distinctive color of the skin.
In 1835, McIntosh’s son Allan McIntosh learned the art of grafting and the family began to produce the apples on a major scale. He established a nursery and extensively promoted the species.
To this day no one is certain how the orphan tree discovered by McIntosh arrived on his property. Experts speculated that it likely grew from the seeds of an apple core tossed onto the ground by a passerby.
McIntosh apple
