Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff You Missed in History Class, a production
Speaker 1: of iHeartRadio. Hello, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Holly
Speaker 1: Frye and I'm Tracy V. Wilson. Fall is finally here,
Speaker 1: the beast time of the year. We're not quite into
Speaker 1: October yet, so it's I mean, it's always spooky season
Speaker 1: for me, but I thought maybe it would be good
Speaker 1: to do something that is fall horrific, but not necessarily
Speaker 1: in the ghosts and gothic things. Right, Hey, you know
Speaker 1: what fits the bill apples Apples, So today is an
Speaker 1: installment of eponymous foods that is the Autumn Apple edition.
Speaker 1: We're going to talk about two different very popular apples,
Speaker 1: neither of which is native to the US. Both of
Speaker 1: them were lucky accidents, as many apple varieties are. Both
Speaker 1: of them have stories which stretch from the early nineteenth
Speaker 1: century right up into present day. Just as a level
Speaker 1: set in case anybody doesn't remember their fruit tree information.
Speaker 1: The thing about apples which came up when we talked
Speaker 1: about Granny Smith on our first Eponymous Food episode, Okay,
Speaker 1: apples can normally only reproduce when they're pollinated by another
Speaker 1: apple tree, at least in the wild. You can do
Speaker 1: grafting and other types of things in nursery situations. But
Speaker 1: so when a variety is found that's unique, it has
Speaker 1: to be manually propagated through grafting or else you're gonna
Speaker 1: lose that particular type of apple when that original tree dies.
Speaker 1: So in both of the stories that we're talking about today,
Speaker 1: there is one original tree, which I love. So the
Speaker 1: first apple we're going to talk about is the Bramley apple,
Speaker 1: and that's the most popular cooking apple in the UK.
Speaker 1: It's not one that most people I would probably enjoy
Speaker 1: raw because raw it is very sour, but once it's
Speaker 1: cooked it has a light sweetness and an almost fluffy texture.
Speaker 1: So it's used a lot in dessert baking, think things
Speaker 1: like pies, tarts, things like that. You can also use
Speaker 1: this apple to make ciders and fruit wines. Yeah, I've
Speaker 1: heard some people describe it. I have never cooked with
Speaker 1: a Bramley. Describe it as becoming almost frothy when you
Speaker 1: cook it, and I'm like, maybe I should start cooking
Speaker 1: with Bramley's. As I mentioned just a moment ago, all
Speaker 1: Bramley apples can be traced back to one tree. That
Speaker 1: tree can still be visited today, but we're going to
Speaker 1: talk about its current status in a moment. The tree
Speaker 1: has a very charming beginning because it is said to
Speaker 1: have been planted by a teenage girl. Sometimes the way
Speaker 1: this is written about it sounds like she is a child,
Speaker 1: but if you do the math, she was like seventeen
Speaker 1: or eighteen when this happened. That girl, Mary Ann Brailsford,
Speaker 1: took several apple pips left over from her mother's kitchen
Speaker 1: cooking and decided to plant them in pots to germinate them,
Speaker 1: and then transplanted the resulting seedlings into the family yard
Speaker 1: in Subtle Nottinghamshire, and the one that became famous grew
Speaker 1: into a small sapling and then into a tree which
Speaker 1: produced apples that cooked up just beautifully. That tree is
Speaker 1: a triploid. It has three sets of chromosomes. Triploid plants
Speaker 1: get some great benefits from their chromosomeal structure. They typically
Speaker 1: are more vigorous growers, they have darker leaves, and in
Speaker 1: the case of fruit bearing trees, they often produce more
Speaker 1: and larger fruit than their counterparts. And that triploid tree
Speaker 1: was the result of a random cross pollination. We don't
Speaker 1: have any idea what varieties were involved to create its
Speaker 1: uniquely perfect baking apples. As we mentioned, Marianne was young
Speaker 1: when she planted this tree. Usually this is dated to
Speaker 1: eighteen o nine. Then she grew up and got married
Speaker 1: and moved away from the house, and in eighteen forty
Speaker 1: six a butcher named Matthew Bramley bought this property and
Speaker 1: its apple trees, which at that point were fully mature
Speaker 1: trees regularly producing apples, and they were so bountiful that
Speaker 1: a local nurseryman named Henry Meriweather noticed them and eventually
Speaker 1: approached Bramley about these trees. Calling Merriweather a nurseryman, that
Speaker 1: sort of makes it seem like he was an adult.
Speaker 1: He was actually only seventeen at the time, but he
Speaker 1: knew a lot about plants and agriculture because he worked
Speaker 1: in his family's nursery from the time he was a
Speaker 1: young boy. Yeah, I read one account that said that
Speaker 1: he had been working with fruit growing tree since he
Speaker 1: was like ten years old. So there's also a weird
Speaker 1: side story in one account that he first encountered the
Speaker 1: apples when like a clergyman was carrying a basket of
Speaker 1: them and I couldn't find any any other validation of that,
Speaker 1: so if you see it maybe, But he did get
Speaker 1: to the apple tree, which is the important thing, wasted
Speaker 1: those apples, and then he asked if he could take
Speaker 1: a cutting to try to graft it, and Bramley said
Speaker 1: he could. He gave his consent on one condition. If
Speaker 1: Merriweather developed the apple variety and started selling it through
Speaker 1: his nursery, it had to be named the Bramley Apple.
Speaker 1: And Meriweather agreed to those terms and started working with
Speaker 1: his cuttings. That was in eighteen fifty six. So Meriweather
Speaker 1: spent the next several decades working with the fruit. As
Speaker 1: he noted, he quote worked all the plants I had
Speaker 1: room for, and by degrees I had a fine stock
Speaker 1: of young plants. As a side note, Mary Brailsford had
Speaker 1: died four years before Merriweather and Bramley met, so she
Speaker 1: never knew the fame her little tree would achieve. In
Speaker 1: eighteen sixty two, Henry sold his first Bramley apples to
Speaker 1: a customer. Sales records indicate that he sold three fruit
Speaker 1: for two shillings on October thirty first of that year.
Speaker 1: That sale was to a mister George Cooper of Upton Hall.
Speaker 1: Two of the grafted trees Meriweather had developed were sold
Speaker 1: to another gardener in eighteen sixty five. In December of
Speaker 1: eighteen seventy six, so a little bit later, Henry Meriweather
Speaker 1: showed his apples to the Royal Horticultural Society for the
Speaker 1: first time. They received a rating of highly commended and
Speaker 1: then later were given the rating of first Class. At
Speaker 1: some point in the early nineteen hundreds, the Bramley tree
Speaker 1: was struck by lightning. By some accounts, it was actually
Speaker 1: knocked down, but it rerooted itself and survived the ordeal.
Speaker 1: The Bramley apple had become so popular that by nineteen
Speaker 1: twenty four, an estimated eighty percent of the apples grown
Speaker 1: in Kent were Bramley's. In the second half of the
Speaker 1: twentieth century and into the twenty first, a woman named
Speaker 1: Nancy Harrison became the tree's guardian. She bought the two
Speaker 1: cottages and property at auction in the nineteen sixties. Mary
Speaker 1: lived on the property in what became known as the
Speaker 1: Brand Family tree House or the adjacent cottage for the
Speaker 1: rest of her life. Yeah some accounts put her in
Speaker 1: just one of the cottages, and some say she moved,
Speaker 1: so I'm not clear on that, just FYI. In the
Speaker 1: early nineteen nineties the trees age was really beginning to show.
Speaker 1: It also had developed honey fungus. So this is a
Speaker 1: blanket name for several types of Armilaria fungus that destroy
Speaker 1: woody and perennial plants from the root. So it displays
Speaker 1: as a white fungal growth that appears between the wood
Speaker 1: and its bark. It sort of separates the two and
Speaker 1: causes problems. Sometimes trees that are infected with this will
Speaker 1: grow mushrooms, typically in the autumn. The upper parts of
Speaker 1: the plant may die, and the leaves that it will
Speaker 1: produce if it does continue to, will be smaller than normal.
Speaker 1: They also turn kind of a yellowy or pale green
Speaker 1: color underground. The roots are slowly rotting from this fungus
Speaker 1: and treatment options are not very good. There is no
Speaker 1: way to get rid of honey fungus. Normally, if a
Speaker 1: plant or tree has it, the course of action would
Speaker 1: be to dig it up and burn it so that
Speaker 1: that fungus won't spread, But no one wants to destroy
Speaker 1: the Bramley tree. Biologists from the University of Nottingham stepped
Speaker 1: in and then, in addition to providing supportive care for
Speaker 1: this tree to keep it alive as long as possible,
Speaker 1: they also undertook a project to clone it that was
Speaker 1: supervised by Professor Ted Cocking and doctor Brian Power of
Speaker 1: the School of Biology. In an article the University released
Speaker 1: in two thousand and nine, they described this process quote
Speaker 1: shoot tips were taken from the original Bramley tree in
Speaker 1: the spring of nineteen ninety. These were cut into smaller
Speaker 1: pieces and treated to eliminate all bacteria, fungi and fungal
Speaker 1: spores which are always present, particularly in an old tree
Speaker 1: like the original Bramley. The inactive leaf buds were then
Speaker 1: removed and placed in a liquid nutrient growth medium, changing
Speaker 1: to fresh medium every four weeks. When the individual roots
Speaker 1: reached three centimeters, they were ready for rooting in a
Speaker 1: new growth medium. These rooted clones were then transferred to
Speaker 1: soil in a mist propagator and then to an open glasshouse.
Speaker 1: The paper explained that rooted clones versus grafts, can grow
Speaker 1: quickly and reach a height of six to eight feet
Speaker 1: in a couple of years. There are twelve Bramley clones
Speaker 1: that are part of the University Park Millennium Garden, and
Speaker 1: there are always shoots being cultivated and distributed to nurseries
Speaker 1: to keep this line alive. There's also one clone planted
Speaker 1: next to the original. I was just idly wondering how
Speaker 1: close to the original. It's not super close, like when
Speaker 1: you see pictures of the original tree. You can't see
Speaker 1: the other tree in the picture. Oh I see, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 1: And also I presume they probably have some ground level
Speaker 1: barriers involved as well. There are some interesting side benefits
Speaker 1: to the cloning work done from the original tree. So
Speaker 1: prior to this project, any Bramley tree that was grown
Speaker 1: outside of the original site was of course a grafted cutting,
Speaker 1: and most were grafted cuttings taken from prior grafted cutting,
Speaker 1: so over time the flavor of the resulting apples had
Speaker 1: faded a little bit. But the cloned trees taste just
Speaker 1: like the original, and by some accounts even better because
Speaker 1: they are young trees, so they're producing sweeter fruit and
Speaker 1: they have more vitamin C than the grafted ones. The
Speaker 1: clone trees have a more compact shape. Growers who have
Speaker 1: received the cloned saplings have often expressed doubt about them,
Speaker 1: initially saying they look kind of like tomato plants, and
Speaker 1: then they are just happily surprised at how rapidly they
Speaker 1: mature and how hardy they are, and they're really really
Speaker 1: impressive fruit production. In two thousand and nine, in honor
Speaker 1: of the trees By Centennial, there was a huge celebration
Speaker 1: and a stained glass window featuring the tree was designed
Speaker 1: by Helen Whittaker of Bartos, York. This was dedicated in
Speaker 1: the Subtle Minister Cathedral. Coming up, we'll talk about some
Speaker 1: ongoing issues with the tree and efforts that are being
Speaker 1: made to take care of it, but first we will
Speaker 1: pause for a sponsor break. In recent years, the original
Speaker 1: Bramley Tree has continued to have some challenges. Nancy Harrison,
Speaker 1: the woman we mentioned that's been caretaking it for so long,
Speaker 1: died in twenty fourteen at the age of ninety four,
Speaker 1: and her nephew, Colson Howard, became the owner and steward
Speaker 1: of the tree. While Howard, who was fifty five when
Speaker 1: his aunt died, kept a garden, he did not feel
Speaker 1: qualified to care for a historic tree, especially one that
Speaker 1: everyone knows has serious issues, so he got assistance from
Speaker 1: tree experts, many of whom had also helped his aunt
Speaker 1: then shown the tree a great deal of care over
Speaker 1: the years. In twenty sixteen, the BBC reported on the
Speaker 1: honey fungus problem, which was deemed untreatable. Howard told the
Speaker 1: news outlet quote, it's all very sad. The tree has
Speaker 1: honey fungus, and I have asked everybody if there is
Speaker 1: a treatment. All the advice seems to be that it
Speaker 1: is fatal in the long term once it has died.
Speaker 1: I would like to preserve the tree where it stands
Speaker 1: for as long as possible. As an aside, Many mentions
Speaker 1: of this tree suggest the twenty teens as the time
Speaker 1: when it developed honey fungus, but the University of Nottingham
Speaker 1: lists the nineteen nineties, and for them who have cultivated
Speaker 1: fully mature trees, that earlier date makes a lot more sense. Yeah,
Speaker 1: it gets a little confused in the telling sometimes. Professor
Speaker 1: Ted Cocking, who we mentioned before, he worked on the
Speaker 1: cloning project and he works on the ongoing care of
Speaker 1: the tree told the press quote, it looks as though
Speaker 1: it is going to die, although we can never be
Speaker 1: one hundred percent certain with a tree. It is a
Speaker 1: great shame. Miss Harrison devoted most of her life to
Speaker 1: looking after the tree and entertaining people who came from
Speaker 1: all over the world to visit the tree. Even if
Speaker 1: it is dying, we all want it to die with dignity.
Speaker 1: It needs to be nursed in its terminal years. In
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, Nottingham Trent University acquired the property where the
Speaker 1: tree is and its two cottages to expand its student
Speaker 1: housing and in the process the university also became the
Speaker 1: custodian of the tree and this has meant that the
Speaker 1: Biology department can carefully monitor the tree's health and work
Speaker 1: to stave off the inevitable for as long as possible.
Speaker 1: In twenty twenty two, as part of the celebration of
Speaker 1: Queen Elizabeth's Platinum Jubilee, His Royal Highness the Prince of
Speaker 1: Wales begin a project for the Queen's Green Canopy, and
Speaker 1: as part of this effort, seventy woodlands and seventy ancient
Speaker 1: trees in the UK were selected to be part of
Speaker 1: a network of growth called the Ancient Canopy. Those seventies
Speaker 1: were to mark the seventy years of the Queen's reign,
Speaker 1: and the Bramley Tree was selected as one of the trees.
Speaker 1: Today there are about three hundred different growers growing Bramley
Speaker 1: apples in the UK, producing more than eighty three thousand
Speaker 1: tons of apples every year. This tree is still alive
Speaker 1: and is still producing fruit. It will eventually die, although
Speaker 1: it gets extraordinary care. It does still have honey fungus
Speaker 1: and it's more than two hundred years old. But another
Speaker 1: scientific effort is underway to preserve everything possible about the
Speaker 1: tree's DNA. There's a research project taking place at Nottingham
Speaker 1: Trent University. It's working to quote complete Bramley tree genomic
Speaker 1: DNA sequencing and mapping and in addition to creating a
Speaker 1: scientific record of the tree's genetic makeup, this will help
Speaker 1: scientists identify the genetic information that creates some specific qualities
Speaker 1: and plants which could maybe be useful in future agricultural efforts.
Speaker 1: The Bramley tree has its own blue historical plaque which
Speaker 1: reads the Bramley Apple tree was grown from a pip
Speaker 1: by a young lady, Mary Ann Brailsford between eighteen oh
Speaker 1: nine and eighteen fifteen. It was thought it came from
Speaker 1: an apple grown on a tree at the bottom of
Speaker 1: her garden. Now number seventy five, that's the street number
Speaker 1: one seedling produced very fine apples in eighteen thirty seven,
Speaker 1: when the new occupier was mister Matthew Bramley. A local gardener,
Speaker 1: Henry Merriweather later obtained permission to take cuttings from the
Speaker 1: tree and it was duly registered as the Bramley seedling.
Speaker 1: So what I love about this is even though the
Speaker 1: butcher who lived at seventy five Church Streets, southled Nottinghamshire
Speaker 1: in the mid eighteen hundreds did not plant or cultivate
Speaker 1: the Bramley tree in its apples, all he said was
Speaker 1: sure you could take it. They still bear his name.
Speaker 1: It's just kind of the least involved eponymous food story
Speaker 1: we can. Next up is the Macintosh apple. This variety
Speaker 1: is well known all over the world for its bright
Speaker 1: red skin with tinges of green, and the crisp flesh,
Speaker 1: which has a flavor that's both sweet and tart. These
Speaker 1: are often eaten raw, but they're still also very popular
Speaker 1: for cooking because they break down easily under heat, so
Speaker 1: that shortens the cooking time. Yeah, you can bake an
Speaker 1: apple pie with those a little bit faster. John McIntosh
Speaker 1: was born on August fifteenth, seventeen seventy seven, in Harpersfield,
Speaker 1: New York. His parents, Alexander and Juliette McIntosh, were Scottish immigrants,
Speaker 1: so you will sometimes see John called a Scottish Canadian
Speaker 1: because he moves in a moment, and sometimes an American Canadian,
Speaker 1: just in case you see both. That's the explainer. Alexander
Speaker 1: McIntosh moved to Harpersfield four years before John was born,
Speaker 1: and he was a loyalist during the Revolutionary War. As
Speaker 1: a young man, John moved to the colony of Upper Canada,
Speaker 1: that's the precursor to modern day Ontario. Upper Canada was
Speaker 1: formed in seventeen ninety one by the Constitutional Act of
Speaker 1: seventeen ninety one, which separated what had been the province
Speaker 1: of Quebec into Upper Canada and Lower Canada. Lower Canada,
Speaker 1: which was largely Catholic and French speaking, would later become
Speaker 1: modern day Quebec, and then Upper Canada was mostly Protestant,
Speaker 1: English speaking and loyalist. John is said to have made
Speaker 1: this move after a fallout with his family, which happened
Speaker 1: due to his relationship with a woman who was deemed unacceptable.
Speaker 1: Whoever that woman was, she does not appear to have
Speaker 1: gone with him. Yeah, there's some question marks around that
Speaker 1: whole thing. Exactly when John McIntosh moved to Upper Canada
Speaker 1: is also a little fuzzy. Some accounts list his arrival
Speaker 1: as seventeen ninety six. That's the earliest date you'll typically see.
Speaker 1: Others put it in the early eighteen hundreds. It seems possible,
Speaker 1: and I most historians have reconciled this as a result
Speaker 1: of him moving from one location to another. So different
Speaker 1: municipalities records are reflecting their own arrival dates, and depending
Speaker 1: on which one of those you reference, you will see
Speaker 1: something different he did once he was there, Mary, a
Speaker 1: woman named Hannah Dorian, and the macintoshes, and I was
Speaker 1: not able to verify this, are said to have had
Speaker 1: eleven children, six boys and five girls. I didn't find
Speaker 1: any info on like whether that was the true number,
Speaker 1: whether they all lived to adulthood, et cetera. One of
Speaker 1: his sons becomes very important in the story, though The
Speaker 1: Dictionary of Canadian Biography cites the date of March eighth,
Speaker 1: eighteen thirteen as the day John purchased a lot of
Speaker 1: land in Matilda Township in the Saint Lawrence Valley, which
Speaker 1: would eventually become the town of Dundela. This is the
Speaker 1: only place Holly saw that night. Every everywhere else seems
Speaker 1: to say this was in eighteen eleven. In any case, though,
Speaker 1: he started clearing the land to grow crops there, and
Speaker 1: it said that in doing so he found apple seedlings.
Speaker 1: This story has some hazy edges. Once again, this might
Speaker 1: have been one seedling, maybe multiple. It also might not
Speaker 1: have been John. It could have been his son Alan,
Speaker 1: although an account from Allan himself credits his father. We'll
Speaker 1: get back to that in a minute. Some versions of
Speaker 1: this story say that John found quite a few seedlings
Speaker 1: in the brush while clearing this property and then replanted
Speaker 1: a lot of them, but then only one survived and
Speaker 1: was the foundation of the Macintosh apple line. As with
Speaker 1: the Bramley, we don't really know what kind of hybridization
Speaker 1: this original seedling had. Yeah, there are some efforts to
Speaker 1: figure it out we'll talk about in a minute. But
Speaker 1: as late as eighteen seventy six, it kind of seems
Speaker 1: if you're looking at some records, like there weren't any
Speaker 1: growers including McIntosh apples in their orchards in Ontario. That
Speaker 1: information comes from the Centennial Exposition of eighteen seventy six,
Speaker 1: which took place in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and according to the
Speaker 1: Dictionary of Canadian Biography entry on John McIntosh, there was
Speaker 1: an exhibit there mounted by the Ontario Fruit Growers, but
Speaker 1: the Macintosh was not listed as a variety of fruit
Speaker 1: grown in the province. But there is some counter evidence
Speaker 1: to that, and we'll dig into it and get the
Speaker 1: story in Alan McIntosh's own words after we hear from
Speaker 1: the sponsors that keep stuff you missed in history class
Speaker 1: going on April ninth, eighteen seventy four, so two years
Speaker 1: before the centennial Expo we mentioned before the break, a
Speaker 1: column of entries about the apple tree appeared in the
Speaker 1: Argus and Patriot newspaper of Montpelier, Vermont, under the heading
Speaker 1: the Macintosh read apple and this column. And when I
Speaker 1: say that, I mean like a full column of the paper,
Speaker 1: not it's a column written by someone. Opens with a
Speaker 1: letter from Johnson Alan McIntosh, dated February fifteenth of that year,
Speaker 1: outlining the differences between the Macintosh and another apple. That
Speaker 1: letter is long, but it includes a lot of information
Speaker 1: about the tree as known to the macintosh family and
Speaker 1: other growers over what seems like a significant period of time,
Speaker 1: as well as the family's version of the origin story.
Speaker 1: So I'm going to read the whole thing. It reads
Speaker 1: as follows, mister Webster, Dear sir, I received yours of
Speaker 1: the tenth asking relative to my apple and tree, whether
Speaker 1: it was the famous or some other variety. Sir, it
Speaker 1: appears that the famouz is called here the snow apple. Now,
Speaker 1: the Macintosh reds are not the snow variety. In the
Speaker 1: first place, the meats of the two are not alike.
Speaker 1: The snow are much whiter. Again, the snow apple does
Speaker 1: not stay on the tree in the fall like the
Speaker 1: red variety. The snow falls with early frosts and the leaves. Also,
Speaker 1: the reds stay in the trees until the ground freezes,
Speaker 1: and also the leaves. Again, the reds are very smooth,
Speaker 1: while the snow has a very rough bark. Again, the
Speaker 1: limbs are very different. The snow are very liable to
Speaker 1: split down, while the red does not for the reason
Speaker 1: it cannot. The limbs come out like pins, being smooth
Speaker 1: with no seam both in crotch and big limbs that
Speaker 1: say there is no tree like them in this respect. Again,
Speaker 1: the tree is a constant bearer. Now, Sir, I am
Speaker 1: quite positive. There is no man living who has even
Speaker 1: known this tree to fail one year of bearing a
Speaker 1: good crop of apples. I am fifty eight years old,
Speaker 1: and do know for fifty years it has borne every
Speaker 1: year without fail a single year in that time. Also,
Speaker 1: the young trees are just as good bearers, yes, sir,
Speaker 1: every year. Further, the frosts, which are frequent here in
Speaker 1: the climate in blossoming time, do not affect my reds
Speaker 1: in the least, while the snow, or yet any other
Speaker 1: kind do. In Canada, the red apple is much larger,
Speaker 1: some of them weighing a pound. Again, the snow variety
Speaker 1: will not keep near as long. Also, the snow loses
Speaker 1: its flavor and becomes insipid, while the red does not.
Speaker 1: It holds its flavor until Midsummer perfectly now, sir. Relative
Speaker 1: to the tree, it was set by my father where
Speaker 1: it now stands, some seventy years ago, with some twenty more,
Speaker 1: which were taken up by the roadside or wherever he
Speaker 1: could find them, and put in his garden. And in
Speaker 1: the course of thirty years all the rest were dead
Speaker 1: and gone. I grafted this kind into some other varieties
Speaker 1: some thirty or forty years ago. The tops of which
Speaker 1: are now smooth and bright as a young tree. Now,
Speaker 1: I would say I have set an orchard of twelve
Speaker 1: hundred trees of this variety, considering one of these trees
Speaker 1: worth four times as much as any other trees for
Speaker 1: this climate. For I have never known one of them
Speaker 1: to die from any cause. Yours respectfully, Alan McIntosh. So
Speaker 1: if that sounds like a sales pitch, sort of is.
Speaker 1: But this is not the start of the family selling
Speaker 1: the trees to other growers. In fact, there's a statement
Speaker 1: about the quality of the trees and Alan McIntosh's honesty
Speaker 1: in the same column of entries that signed by sixteen growers,
Speaker 1: and several of them include their own testimonials about the
Speaker 1: Macintosh red and their experiences growing them. So there were
Speaker 1: clearly orchards in Ontario that were growing these before eighteen
Speaker 1: seventy six. One of these growers, William Arrington, states that
Speaker 1: he has been growing McIntosh reds for five years. Another
Speaker 1: orchard SS Clow and Son of Braintree, Vermont said, in
Speaker 1: their testimonial quote, we understand that some parties are claiming
Speaker 1: they can furnish the same tree. Now if they will
Speaker 1: furnish the same tree not raised in the Macintosh nursery,
Speaker 1: we will give one hundred dollars. So clearly, not only
Speaker 1: was the McIntosh being grown and sold by other growers
Speaker 1: at the time, but it had a really good reputation
Speaker 1: that had reached well outside of Ontario. There are we
Speaker 1: should point out some inconsistencies in Allen's account with the
Speaker 1: historical record, though in particular, he mentions that his father
Speaker 1: planted the first Macintosh seventy years prior, but John McIntosh
Speaker 1: didn't own that land until eighteen eleven or eighteen thirteen,
Speaker 1: depending on the source you look at. Either way, sixty
Speaker 1: seems like a more accurate number than seventy. Remember, this
Speaker 1: was being written in in eighteen seventy four, but John
Speaker 1: himself had been dead for almost thirty years when Allan's
Speaker 1: letter was published, so it's not entirely surprising that some
Speaker 1: of the historical dates probably just passed down through the
Speaker 1: family verbally were noted incorrectly. The elder Macintosh's exact date
Speaker 1: of death is not certain, but he died sometime between
Speaker 1: the fall of eighteen forty five in the beginning of
Speaker 1: eighteen forty six. By the end of the nineteenth century
Speaker 1: and into the early twentieth century, the Macintosh's popularity grew rapidly.
Speaker 1: It was as Alan's statement indicated, a hearty apple that
Speaker 1: survived the cold well and produced a lot of sweet fruit.
Speaker 1: One of the only flaws noted about it was that
Speaker 1: this fruit bruised easily. Some accounts credit the robust health
Speaker 1: of the macintosh with enabling more orchardists to develop commercial farms.
Speaker 1: Alan died in eighteen ninety nine, so he was only
Speaker 1: able to see the early success of this apple that
Speaker 1: he had nursed and developed in promoted his whole life,
Speaker 1: and just as that success was reaching a crescendo, the
Speaker 1: original McIntosh apple tree was damaged by a fire. It
Speaker 1: didn't recover and it eventually collapsed, and at the time
Speaker 1: the tree was given a memorial headstone placed at the
Speaker 1: base of the remaining stump, which reads the site of
Speaker 1: the original McIntosh apple Tree eighteen eleven to nineteen oh six.
Speaker 1: Another stone marker was placed near the road in nineteen twelve,
Speaker 1: noting that the farm was the location of the original
Speaker 1: macintosh apple tree. In nineteen sixty two, a historical marker
Speaker 1: was placed outside the homestead by the Ontario Heritage Foundation.
Speaker 1: It lists eighteen eleven, not eighteen thirteen, as the year
Speaker 1: John McIntosh acquired the land. The pla'x version of the
Speaker 1: story is brief, and it reads in full quote John
Speaker 1: McIntosh seventeen seventy seven to eighteen forty six. McIntosh's parents
Speaker 1: immigrated from Inverness, Scotland, to the Mohawk Valley, New York,
Speaker 1: and John moved to Upper Canada in seventeen ninety six.
Speaker 1: In eighteen eleven he acquired a farm near this site,
Speaker 1: and while clearing the land of second growth, discovered several
Speaker 1: apple seedlings. He transplanted these, and one bore the superior fruit,
Speaker 1: which became famous as the Macintosh read apple. John's son, Alan,
Speaker 1: established a nursery and promoted this new species extensively. It
Speaker 1: was widely acclaimed in Ontario and the northern United States,
Speaker 1: and was introduced into British Columbia about nineteen ten. Its
Speaker 1: popularity in North America and propagation in many lands attest
Speaker 1: the initiative and industry of John McIntosh and his descendants.
Speaker 1: There are some people who think John McIntosh gets a
Speaker 1: little too much credit in all of this, and that
Speaker 1: Alan should be the one that everyone talks about, just Fyi.
Speaker 1: In nineteen seventy, efforts were made to see if the
Speaker 1: Macintosh could be proven to have been a descendant of
Speaker 1: the famouz Or snow apple that Alan McIntosh referenced in
Speaker 1: his letter to the paper. A lot of apple experts
Speaker 1: have concluded that the Famous, which was in the region
Speaker 1: when John McIntosh moved there, had to be a genetic ancestor.
Speaker 1: But in nineteen seventy W. H. Upshaw of the Horticultural
Speaker 1: Experiment Station in Vineland, Ontario, conducted experiments to see if
Speaker 1: he could cross the Famous with other breeds to get
Speaker 1: anything close to a Macintosh, but he never could. Based
Speaker 1: on his work, he listed the fall Saint Lawrence Apple
Speaker 1: and the Alexander apple as likely progenitors. In two thousand
Speaker 1: and one, another plaque was installed, this time by the
Speaker 1: Historic Sites and Monuments Board of Canada. This plaque also
Speaker 1: supports that eighteen to eleven date and it reads quote
Speaker 1: In eighteen eleven, John McIntosh discovered an apple sapling on
Speaker 1: his land in Matilda Township. By bringing about its propagation
Speaker 1: and wide dissemination, he and his family had a significant
Speaker 1: impact on Canada's fruit growing industry. The Macintosh apple not
Speaker 1: only possessed a highly desirable taste, texture, aroma, and appearance,
Speaker 1: who was also's so ideally suited for growing in the
Speaker 1: country's colder climate. A number of well known hybrids, such
Speaker 1: as the Cortland's Empire, Lobo and Spartan were derived from
Speaker 1: this fruit. The macintosh has become one of the most
Speaker 1: popular varieties grown in Canada and abroad. The second plaque
Speaker 1: was not installed at the Macintosh Farm, but instead at
Speaker 1: a nearby park which is also named McIntosh Park. In
Speaker 1: twenty eleven, the last known Macintosh apple tree that was
Speaker 1: a first generation graft from the original tree was cut
Speaker 1: down on July twenty fifth after it died. According to
Speaker 1: the owner of the property, Sandra Bexted, the summer had
Speaker 1: just been too dry for the aging tree. It produced
Speaker 1: some leaves before it died, but they fell off as
Speaker 1: it reached its end. The tree had been grown from
Speaker 1: cuttings from the original by Sandra's great grandfather, Samuel Smith,
Speaker 1: who They still have that orchard and it still functions
Speaker 1: once again. Scientists stepped in horticulture lists from the Upper
Speaker 1: Canada village, collected twigs from the tree before it was
Speaker 1: cut down and grafted them onto rootstock. Three of those
Speaker 1: took root, and they were headed to an orchard in
Speaker 1: the village once they grew large enough. The Macintosh farm
Speaker 1: where it all began has also had some challenges. In
Speaker 1: twenty eighteen, a story ran on CBC News about the
Speaker 1: state of the property. At that point, it was owned
Speaker 1: by a man from Austria named Gerd Scoff, who had
Speaker 1: bought it in nineteen eighty seven and was eager to
Speaker 1: sell it. The orchard and the farmland were a lot
Speaker 1: to manage. He was also ready to move on. In
Speaker 1: addition to how big and hard to care for this
Speaker 1: property was, it was also just too remote. He wanted
Speaker 1: to live closer to a hospital as he and his
Speaker 1: wife got older, in case they ever had any kind
Speaker 1: of emergency. At the time, he was asking for eight
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy five thousand Canadian dollars. According to a
Speaker 1: BBC report about the farm, that was equivalent to six
Speaker 1: hundred and seventy five thousand dollars US or five hundred
Speaker 1: and fourteen thousand British pounds. The property was listed as
Speaker 1: five point five hectares that's a little bigger than thirteen
Speaker 1: and a half acres. The farmhouse and its surrounding structures
Speaker 1: had really fallen into disrepair. There were frequent visitors from animals,
Speaker 1: unwanted animal visitors, we will say, and occasional human break
Speaker 1: ins as well. Scoff's moved away from the property in
Speaker 1: twenty sixteen, and it was still vacant, so it further deteriorated.
Speaker 1: According to a CBC Canada report on the land, most
Speaker 1: of Scoff's neighbors saw that his asking price was too high.
Speaker 1: Even other orchard owners in the area indicated that the
Speaker 1: property had been neglected for so long that it would
Speaker 1: just be really difficult even for a pro to get
Speaker 1: it up and running again. Scoff was not interested in
Speaker 1: working with the government on making the pharm a tourist destination,
Speaker 1: and while he said he would not sell to the
Speaker 1: local or federal government, there were also no offers from
Speaker 1: those municipalities. Scoff cited his distrust of the government generally
Speaker 1: as his reason for not wanting to work with them.
Speaker 1: It is unclear to me if this is related to
Speaker 1: the historic marker that was placed in the park rather
Speaker 1: than on the property. I don't know if there was
Speaker 1: like a long history there, but there have been public
Speaker 1: calls over the years for the Macintosh to be more
Speaker 1: fully recognized by the Ontario government as a historically significant
Speaker 1: part of the province's heritage, but so far it has
Speaker 1: not been deemed important enough. Even though it has appeared
Speaker 1: on Canadian money. We don't really know if anybody has
Speaker 1: ever made a real offer on this. A New York
Speaker 1: Times article about the McIntosh apple from twenty twenty one
Speaker 1: states that the Macintosh farm is long gone. This sites
Speaker 1: the Smith Farm nearby as the oldest operating orchard still
Speaker 1: offering the variety ah apples apples. Listen. Do I always
Speaker 1: think I want to try to grow apple trees? Yes?
Speaker 1: Does it ever work? No? I know who I am,
Speaker 1: and I am a lazy gardener, but I do have
Speaker 1: a listener mail about UV protection one of my favorite things.
Speaker 1: This is from our listener Alyssa, who writes, Hey, ladies,
Speaker 1: been a fan for many years now. Thank you for
Speaker 1: all your research and well delivered information. I just wanted
Speaker 1: to drop a quick note about UV protection. I'm a
Speaker 1: conductor for a freight rail company. I'm also what you
Speaker 1: might call pasty. I always do my best to use
Speaker 1: as much sun protection as possible, but it's not always
Speaker 1: possible to reapply throughout the day due to being in
Speaker 1: the middle of the yard and either not having it
Speaker 1: available or dirty hands. They would break my skin out.
Speaker 1: My biggest suggestion is always wearing long sleeve shirts. As
Speaker 1: you mentioned, there are some with UV protection built in.
Speaker 1: Wearing long sleeves carries two benefits, one keeping the sun off, obviously,
Speaker 1: but also keeping the grease and likely chemicals that are
Speaker 1: on the cars off my skin as well, hopefully. I
Speaker 1: often have people ask me how I can wear long
Speaker 1: sleeves in the summer, but I swear you aren't any
Speaker 1: hotter than you would be otherwise, if it's ninety five,
Speaker 1: you're gonna be hot no matter what. It'd be worse
Speaker 1: for it to be ninety five and have a sunburn,
Speaker 1: and then you can't sleep at night too. I laughed
Speaker 1: when Holly described her get up for mowing the lawn
Speaker 1: and absolutely related. Sadly, I didn't really start properly protecting
Speaker 1: my skin until I got tattoos, but hopefully better late
Speaker 1: than never. And then she sent the pet tax of
Speaker 1: her dog Lucy and her cat Phoenix, the absolute very cutest,
Speaker 1: cutest and they're together and Phoenix is a torty, so
Speaker 1: I'm surprised that she looks like a sweet little cuddler
Speaker 1: with a puppy, because sometimes torties can have a little latitude.
Speaker 1: She also sent a picture of herself at work fully
Speaker 1: covered in all of her long sleevitude, so that is
Speaker 1: a good point. Listen long sleep clothes again. Will I
Speaker 1: feel like this is my soapbox lately? Everybody wears sun
Speaker 1: protection long sleeves. We're great. If you would like to
Speaker 1: write as you can do so at History podcast at
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