McIntosh (apple)

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Template:Short description Template:Redirect-distinguish Template:Use dmy dates Template:Use Canadian English Template:Infobox Cultivar The McIntosh (Template:IPAc-en Template:Respell), McIntosh Red, or colloquially the Mac, is a cultivated apple variety, designated the national apple of Canada. The fruit has red and green skin, a tart flavor, and tender white flesh, which ripens in late September. An all-purpose apple, the McIntosh may be eaten raw, cooked, or used to make apple sauce.

John McIntosh discovered the original McIntosh sapling on his Dundela farm in Upper Canada in 1811. He and his wife cultivated it, and the family started grafting the tree and selling the fruit in 1835. In 1870, it entered commercial production, and became common in Ontario, Quebec, New England, and New York after 1900. While still produced in large quantities, the fruit's popularity fell in the early 21st century in the face of competition from varieties such as the Ambrosia, Gala, and Honeycrisp.

Jef Raskin, an employee at Apple Computer, named the Macintosh computer line—later abbreviated to "Mac" in 1999—after the cultivar.

Description

The McIntosh, or McIntosh Red (nicknamed the "Mac"),Template:Sfn is the most popular apple cultivar in eastern Canada and the northeastern United States. It also sells well in Eastern Europe.Template:Sfn

A spreading tree that is moderately vigorous, the McIntosh bears annually or in alternate years.Template:Sfn The tree is hardy to at least USDA Hardiness zone 4a, or Template:Convert. 50% or more of its flowers die at Template:Convert or below.Template:Sfn

Illustration of red and green apple above, and a cross section of the same below.
A McIntosh that was illustrated in 1901

The McIntosh apple is a small to medium-sized round fruit with a short stem. It has a red and green skin that is thick, tender, and easy to peel. Its white flesh is sometime tinged with green or pink and is juicy, tender, and firm, soon becoming soft. The flesh is easily bruised.Template:Sfn

The McIntosh is a general-purpose apple; it is suitable both for eating raw and for cooking.Template:Sfn It is used primarily for dessert,Template:Sfn and requires less time to cook than most cultivars.Template:Sfn It is usually blended when used for juiceTemplate:Sfn or cider.<ref name=":22">Template:Cite news</ref> It could also be used to make apple sauce<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> and apple pie.<ref name=":22" />

The fruit grows best in cool areas where nights are cold and autumn days are clear; otherwise, it suffers from poor colour and soft flesh, and tends to fall from the tree before harvest. It stores for two to three months in air, but is prone to scald, flesh softening, chilling sensitivity,Template:Sfn and coprinus rot.Template:Sfn It can become mealy when stored at temperatures below Template:Convert.Template:Sfn The fruit is optimally stored in a controlled atmosphere in which temperatures are between Template:Convert, and air content is 1.5–4.5% oxygen and 1–5% carbon dioxide; under such conditions, the McIntosh will keep for five to eight months.Template:Sfn

Cultivation

The McIntosh is most commonly cultivated in Canada, the United States, and Eastern Europe.Template:Sfn As of the 2020s, most of Canada's McIntosh came from Quebec and Ontario.<ref name=":62">Template:Cite web</ref>Template:Reference page South of the border, more than two thirds of McIntosh apples were harvested in New York State.<ref name=":62" />Template:Reference page It is one of the top five apple cultivars used in cloning, and research indicates the McIntosh combines well for winter hardiness.Template:Sfn

If unsprayed, the McIntosh succumbs easily to apple scab, which may lead to entire crops being unmarketable. It has generally low susceptibility to fire blight, powdery mildew, cedar-apple rust, quince rust, and hawthorn rust. It is susceptible to fungal diseases such as Nectria canker, brown rot, black rot, race 1 of apple rust (but resists race 2). Furthermore, it is moderately resistant to Pezicula bark rot and Alternaria leaf blotch, and resists brown leaf spots well.Template:Sfn

The McIntosh is harvested in the middle of September, roughly at the same time as the Gala and Honeycrisp.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref>

The McIntosh is one of the most common cultivars used in apple breeding; a 1996 study found that the McIntosh was a parent in 101 of 439 cultivars selected, more than any other founding clone.Template:Efn It was used in over half of the Canadian cultivars selected, and was used extensively in the United States and Eastern Europe as well. But rarely was it used elsewhere.Template:Sfn Offspring of the McIntosh include: the Macoun (with the Jersey Black), the Spartan, the Cortland (with the Ben Davis);<ref name=":0">Template:Cite book</ref> the Empire (with the Red Delicious);<ref name="Cornell30thBirthday">Template:Cite web</ref> the Jonamac, the Jersey Mac,Template:Sfn the Lobo, the Melba, the Summered, the Tydeman's Red,Template:Sfn and possibly the Paula Red.Template:Sfn

History

McIntosh apples on a tree

Apple trees were introduced to Canada at the Habitation at Port-Royal as early as 1606 by French settlers. Following its introduction, apple cultivation spread inland.Template:Sfn

The McIntosh's discoverer, John McIntosh (1777 – Template:Circa),Template:Sfn left his native Mohawk Valley home in New York StateTemplate:Sfnm in 1796Template:Sfn to follow his love, Dolly Irwin, who had been taken to Upper Canada by her Loyalist parents. She had died by the time he found her, but he settled as a farmer in Upper Canada.Template:Sfn He married Hannah Doran in 1801, and they farmed along the Saint Lawrence River until 1811,Template:Efn when McIntosh exchanged the land he had with his brother-in-law Edward Doran for a plot in Dundela.Template:EfnTemplate:Sfn

While clearing the overgrown plot, McIntosh discovered some apple seedlings on his farm.<ref name="CanHist">Template:Cite web</ref> Since the crabapple was the only native apple in North America before European settlement, it must have had European origins. The Snow Apple (or Fameuse) had been popular in Lower Canada before that time; the seedlings may have sprouted from discarded fruit. Fall St Lawrence and Alexander have also been proposed, but the parentage remains unknown.Template:Sfn<ref name="CanHist"/> He transplanted the seedlings next to his house. One of the seedlings bore particularly good fruit.Template:Sfn The McIntosh grandchildren dubbed the fruit it produced "Granny's apple", as they often saw their grandmother taking care of the tree in the orchard.Template:Sfn McIntosh was selling seedlings from the tree by 1820, but they did not produce fruit of the quality of the original.Template:Sfn

John McIntosh's son Allan (1815–1899)Template:Sfn learned grafting about 1835;Template:Sfn with this cloning, the McIntoshes could maintain the distinctive properties of the fruit of the original tree. Allan and brother Sandy (1825–1906), nicknamed "Sandy the Grafter", increased production and promotion of the cultivar.Template:Sfn Earliest sales were in 1835, and in 1836 the cultivar was renamed the "McIntosh Red";Template:Efn it entered commercial production in 1870. The apple became popular after 1900, when the first sprays for apple scab were developed.Template:Sfn A house fire damaged the original McIntosh tree in 1894; it last produced fruit in 1908, and died and fell over in 1910.Template:Sfn<ref name="CanHist"/> Horticulturist William Tyrrell Macoun of the Central Experimental Farm in Ottawa is credited with popularizing the McIntosh in Canada, praising it as "one of the finest appearing and best dessert apples" available at the time. The Macoun, a hybrid of the McIntosh and Jersey Black grown by the Agricultural Experiment Station in Geneva, New York, was named for him in 1923.Template:Sfn

The original tree discovered by John McIntosh bore fruit for more than ninety years, and died in 1910.Template:Sfn Horticulturalists from the Upper Canada Village heritage park saved cuttings from the last known first-generation McIntosh graft before it died in 2011 for producing clones.Template:Sfn

Popularity and sales

McIntosh apples on sale at the Jean-Talon Market in Montreal

During the twentieth century, the McIntosh was the most popular cultivar in Eastern Canada and New England; it was also widely sold in the United Kingdom.<ref name="MagMonitor">Template:Cite news</ref> The McIntosh made up 40% of the Canadian apple market by the 1960s;Template:Sfn and at least thirty varieties of McIntosh hybrid were known by 1970.Template:Sfn However, its market share declined to 28% in 2014<ref name="MagMonitor" /> and is expected to continue to do so, in part due to production cost and in part due to consumers favoring sweeter, crisper, and less tart apple varieties.<ref name="Saba2020">Template:Cite news</ref><ref name=":1">Template:Cite news</ref> Its popularity has also waned in the face of competition from imports; in the first decade of the 21st century, the Gala (imported from Chile or the United States) accounted for 33% of the apple market in Ontario to the McIntosh's 12%,<ref name=":1" /> and the Northern Spy had become the preferred apple for pies.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> Production remained important to Ontario, however, as Template:Convert of McIntosh apples were produced in 2010.<ref name=":1" /> In Nova Scotia, apple orchardists reinvigorated their businesses during the late 2000s by replacing McIntosh and Cortland with newer varieties that brought in more money per bin, namely the Ambrosia, Gala, and especially the Honeycrisp.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> In Quebec, about two fifths of all apples harvested were McIntosh, as of 2020. Production remained relatively high in part because many orchardists were at the end of their careers with no successors, and as such were not keen to replace the McIntosh with newer varieties.<ref name="Saba2020" /> A significant portion of McIntosh apples harvested in Quebec was sent for processing while the average retail price of a McIntosh was only a third that of a Honeycrisp.<ref name="Saba2020" /> Nevertheless, the McIntosh is unlikely to disappear in the foreseeable future due to persistent residual demand for legacy varieties,<ref>Template:Cite news</ref> which do not require royalties for cultivation and sales, unlike the newer managed varieties.<ref>Template:Cite news</ref>

Despite the arrival of new competitors, the McIntosh remains one of the most produced apple varieties in Canada during the 2020s.

In the United States, the McIntosh was one of the most produced apples during the twentieth century, behind only the Red Delicious and the Golden Delicious.<ref name=":2">Template:Cite news</ref> In the Northeastern United States, the McIntosh replaced many Baldwin trees that were killed in a severe winter in 1933–34.Template:Sfn The McIntosh become the second most popular variety in the 1970s, after the Red Delicious.<ref name=":2" /> According to the US Apple Association, it remains one of the nine most popular apple cultivars in that country, as of 2025.<ref>Template:Cite web</ref> By the 2020s, however, total production of the McIntosh, measured in bushels, has fallen behind that of a new variety, the Cosmic Crisp. Even in New York, which has traditionally favoured the McIntosh, production has fallen from about a quarter of the state's total volume in the 1980s to about 14 percent in the 2020s.<ref name=":2" /> The decline of older varieties like the McIntosh and Red Delicious follows the advent of newer varieties like the Honeycrisp, offering consumers sweeter and more complex tastes. They also risk becoming mere commodities—that is, common and cheap products—making it them less profitable for farmers and distributors.<ref name=":2" />

Descendant cultivars

Descendant cultivars from McIntosh<ref>Fruit Varieties Journal vol. 29, 1975</ref>
Name Parentage Selected year Introduced year
Edgar McIntosh x Forest 1929
Toshfor McIntosh x Forest 1926
Maud McIntosh x Longfield 1921
Sharon McIntosh x Longfield 1920 1922
Blair McIntosh x Fameuse 1944 1973
Jubilee McIntosh x Grimes Golden 1936 1939
Macoun McIntosh x Jersey Black 1918 1923
Toshlaw McIntosh x Lawver 1925
Fantazja McIntosh x Linda 1954 1960
South Dakota Macata McIntosh x Malus Baccata 1938
Toshkee McIntosh x Milwaukee 1923
Spartan McIntosh x Newtown 1936
Maga McIntosh x Virginia Crab 1919 1933
Michaelmas Red McIntosh x Worcester Pearmain 1945
Tydemans Early Worcester McIntosh x Worcester Pearmain 1945
Newtosh McIntosh x Yellow Newtown 1922 1923
Killand McIntosh x Dolgo 1951 1957
Northland McIntosh x Dolgo 1938 1957
Stonetosh Stone x McIntosh 1922
Rosilda Prince x McIntosh 1916 1921
Cortland Ben Davis x McIntosh 1915
Toshprince Prince x McIntosh 1923
McPrince Prince x McIntosh 1922
Niagara Carlton x McIntosh 1950 1962
George McIntosh O.P. 1948
Glendale McIntosh O.P. 1948 1956
Glenelm McIntosh O.P. 1945 1952
Glenmary McIntosh O.P. 1940 1948
Glenwale McIntosh O.P. 1940 1958
Kress McIntosh McIntosh O.P. 1920 1934
Lobo McIntosh O.P. 1906 1930
Melba McIntosh O.P. 1909 1924
Patricia McIntosh O.P. 1920
Reta McIntosh O.P. 1953

O.P. = Open Pollinated

Cultural significance

A beige, boxy computer with a small black and white screen showing a window and desktop with icons.
Apple Inc.'s Macintosh line of personal computers was named after the fruit.

The McIntosh has been designated the national apple of Canada.Template:Sfn A popular subscription funded a plaque placed Template:Convert from the original McIntosh tree in 1912. The Ontario Archaeological and Historic Sites Board replaced the plaque with a more descriptive one in 1962, and the Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada put up another in a park nearby in 2001, by a painted mural commemorating the fruit.Template:Sfn

Apple Inc. employee Jef Raskin named the Macintosh line of personal computers after the McIntosh.<ref name="CanHist"/> He deliberately misspelled the name to avoid conflict with the hi-fi equipment manufacturer McIntosh Laboratory. Apple's attempt in 1982 to trademark the name Macintosh was nevertheless denied due to the phonetic similarity between Apple's product and the name of the hi-fi manufacturer. Apple licensed the rights to the name in 1983, and bought the trademark in 1986.Template:Sfn

In 1995, the Royal Canadian Mint commissioned Toronto artist Roger Hill to design a commemorative silver dollar for release in 1996. Mint engraver Sheldon Beveridge engraved the image of a group of three McIntoshes and a McIntosh blossom, which adorn one side with a ribbon naming the variety. An inscription on the edge reads "1796 Canada Dollar 1996". Issued sheathed in a silver cardboard sleeve in a black leatherette case, 133,779 pieces of the proof were sold, as well as 58,834 pieces of the uncirculated version in a plastic capsule and silver sleeve.Template:Sfn

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See also

Notes

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References

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Works cited

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