Cherry blossoms at Oy6 Park, with a distant view of Mt. Iwaki 
to preserve the trees which were thus saved from be- 
coming extinct. Among these enthusiasts, Magoemon 
Takagi, a gardener at Denchu, Sugamo (Tokyo) took 
unusual interest in cherry culture and spared no efforts 
to preserve stocks of the plant. For three generations 
this gardener’s family collected a large variety of fine 
cherry trees from all localities far and wide, and at- 
tended to their: culture with great zeal and untiring 
energy. In 1886, when the embankments along the 
course of the River Arakawa at Kohoku-mura, a village 
in the suburbs of Tokyo, were completed at the instance 
of Kengo Shimizu, the village magistrate, the villagers 
planted on the embankment a number of young cherry 
trees representing some seventy-eight different kinds 
grown in the nursery belonging to the gardener Takagi, 
with a view to making an avenue of cherries. In 
~19 
