In the latter 1800s, before eastern Washington emerged as the state’s primary agricultural area, and before railroads and highways linked its abundance of food to the hungry mouths of a growing nation, Puget Sound served as a major transportation artery. And smack in the center of the ocean inlet, Vashon Island farmers, many of them Japanese, provided much of the fruit transported in barrels to points as far-flung as San Francisco. Peaches, cherries, and apples thrived on Vashon. Although only vestiges remain of its fruitful past, scattered throughout the island are thousands of relic fruit trees, many more than 100 […]