Yoshino Japanese Cedar

The Yoshino area of Nara Prefecture, the birthplace of Japanese afforestation, has planted trees for the past five centuries or so. Yoshino cedar trees are grown by a method called "dense planting" peculiar to Yoshino Forestry, the stand-out feature of which is no tree knots and narrow annual rings. The excellence of this wood for making barrels (and tubs), allowed a barrel production center (Tarumaru) to emerge. Tarumaru was carried by raft down the Yoshino River, turned into barrels at Nishinomiya, or used to make Japanese sake barrels at Sakai. Yoshino cedar also excels as a high-grade building material and is used as precious wood.