The Japanese have a festival similar to our own National Cherry Blossom Festival.

Mayor Yukio Ozaki, Lord Mayor of Tokyo, presented President Taft and the people of the United States with a gift of 3,000 cherry trees in 1912.

The United States returned the gesture in 1915 with a gift of American dogwood trees, and thus grew the Flowering Dogwood Festival in Ise City, Japan. Pictured are Satoko Moriguchi, Flowering Dogwood Princess; Kiyoda Kondo, Flowering Dogwood Queen; and Takako Goto, also Flowering Dogwood Princess.