Story behind the art of Jane Hancock
29th Annual International
American Society of Botanical Artists and the Society of Illustrators
McIntosh Pair
Malus domestica 'McIntosh'
This painting project began with visits to the home of friends who cultivate three apple trees along their city street, along with an extensive vegetable garden. They were generous in providing me with clippings that included ripe fruit. While they prefer the fruit of their other apple varieties, clippings from their McIntosh tree afforded me some excellent specimens to pose and paint. It was an enjoyable challenge to capture this clipping with the branch positioned toward the viewer, and the leaves growing outward from the center and catching the light in a variety of ways.
The McIntosh has a considerable history as a North American apple variety. An emigrant from New York State to Canada, John McIntosh, discovered some apple seedlings when clearing overgrown farmland in Dundela, in what is now Ontario, in 1811. The seedlings’ parentage is unknown; apples had been introduced from Europe to Canada two centuries earlier.
John McIntosh transplanted and cultivated his seedlings, and one produced particularly good fruit. When it matured, he sold seedlings from it, but sexually reproduced apple trees do not grow “true” to the parent. The seeds contain random genetic combinations, so they produce unpredictable and varied results. Eventually John’s sons Allan and Sandy learned grafting, and began selling clones of the original tree that maintained its desirable qualities. By the 1870s they were selling the “McIntosh Red” commercially.
Learning this history prompted me to reread the excellent essay on the cultural history of apples in America by Michael Pollan, in his 2001 book The Botany of Desire. Before the 20th century, most apples grown in North America were used to brew mildly alcoholic cider. Horticulturists knew about grafting apple trees, but for the most part farmers kept orchards produced from seed, with the natural variations that come with sexual reproduction. Most fruits were so unpalatable that they were known as “spitters,” only good for fermenting and drinking. According to Pollan, “In rural areas cider took the place not only of wine and beer but of coffee, tea, juice, and even water.”* Once in a while a farmer would find a tree with outstanding characteristics among the spitters. With careful cultivation, propagation, and publicity, such an exceptional tree might bring the farmer commercial success.
Having reread Pollan’s essay, I can appreciate that John McIntosh’s special tree was a remarkable discovery: it’s cold hardy, its fruit can be eaten raw or cooked, used for juice or cider, and can be stored for months. The business launched by his sons Allan and Sandy was part of the “great apple rush” of the late 19th century, when hundreds of new varieties produced by random natural selection were discovered, named, and commercialized. With the advent of refrigeration and chemical controls for diseases, the McIntosh became the most widespread apple cultivar in Quebec, Ontario, New England, and New York for most of the twentieth century.
The Mac (as it’s now abbreviated) is still widely grown, even though its dominance has been edged out by newer varieties, and it has been widely used for breeding. It remains the national apple of Canada.
There’s a quirky side note about the apple’s cultural heritage: in the early 1980s Jef Raskin of Apple Inc. named the Macintosh line of personal computers after it. He deliberately altered the spelling to avoid conflict with a McIntosh Laboratory that manufactured hi-fi equipment. Like the apple itself, the personal computers are now known as just “Macs.”
*Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire, (New York: 2001), Chapter 1, p. 58
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