the State Department and the Japanese Government to replace the ship- 

 ment destroyed (41). Professor S. I. Kuwana, director, Imperial Quar- 

 antine Service, approached the city officials in Tokyo and proposed that 

 he and his two colleagues — Professor Y. Kumagaya, horticulturist of the 

 Imperial Horticultural Station of Okitsu and Professor M. Miyoshi of the 

 Imperial University of Tokyo — be designated as a committee unit of the 

 Okitsu Imperial Horticultural Experiment Station to select and propagate 

 selections of Japanese flowering cherry trees for shipment to America. His 

 proposal was well received and these experts, together with S. Funazu, a 

 local individual experienced in flowering cherries, selected scions from 12 

 selections early in December 1910 from the Ekita-mura (village of Ekita) 

 area along the banks of the Arakawa River. 



These scions were carefully fumigated with hydrocyanic acid gas and 

 placed in cold storage; in February 1911 they were grafted to specially 

 selected understock. The following December, after the young trees 

 dropped their leaves, they were taken from the ground, fumigated a 

 second time, and prepared to ship to America (42). 



By the end of January 1912, 6,000 Japanese cherry trees were ready for 

 shipment to the United States on the Japanese steamship Awa-Maru. 

 Half of these were designated for Washington, D.C., from the people of 

 Tokyo, and the rest, for New York City, a gift from the Japanese Society 

 of Tokyo (43). Professor Yoshinao Kozai, director, Nishigahara, Agricul- 

 tural Experiment Station, Tokyo, wrote to L. O. Howard, on January 29. 

 He explained in great detail the precautionary care with which this ship- 

 ment of cherry trees had been prepared. 



Figure 12.— Department of Agriculture scientists inspecting first shipment of Japanese 

 cherry trees. January 7, 1910. 



17 



