MONUMENT TO AN APPLE

Otago Daily Times, Issue 18448, 9 January 1922, Page 8

MONUMENT TO AN APPLE

, Tills is -tho true- story -of ' the famous Canadian apples, the “Mackintosh Red,” grown " all over Canada and the United States. - ’’"It is related by Mr P. J. Carey, Dominion .Fruit Branch Demonstrator, of Ottawa, who was in charge of the, Federal exhibit, at “The Daily, Mail” Imperial Fruit Show,'' which was held "at Crystal Palace. London. Apple trees of this variety will be experimentally grown at “The Daily Mail” Ideal Village, Welwyn, Hertfordshire, next year. . Years ago John Mackintosh, a sturdy Scottish settler, was walking round the homestead ho had made for himself on the shores of the St. Lawrence River. stick and stone of tho building was his, and laid with his own hands. As ho was looking at his bam with a feeling of . pride, ho observed a small sapling growing out of - the ground. It Was a nice sapling, straight and healthy-looking, and thereafter for three or four years Mr Mackintosh treated it carefully. In time the sapling grew into a tree and blossomed, and he watched with interest the single apple which grew upon his foundling. In the early fall (autumn) the apple ripened to a beautiful red fruit, fand, as it belonged to no known variety, he christened it the “Mackintosh RcdJj” Year by year the tree throve and boro a prolific crop, and Mr Mackintosh acquired fame far and wide as the producer of a now and splendid apple. This tree, growing at tho end of Mr Mackintosh’s bam, became the parent tree of all the Mackintosh Red apples now grown in Canada and the United States, and every apple so named is directly descended from this foundling, of the farm. As years passed the Mackintosh Red came to be one of the acknowledged best among Gmadian apples. Tho parent tree acquired historic interest, and fruitgrowers visiting tho neighbourhood of Morrisburg would make a special pilgrimage to see it. Unhappily, the hoary old parent tree camo to a sad end. There was. a fire at the homestead of John Mackintosh, and the' barn and tho tree perished together. Grateful fruitgrowers of Ginnda subscribed £SOO, and a monument was erected on the spot where the tree had stood—the '.only monument that has cvqj, been ototjicd to -an applfi.