The Benibana Museum (The Safflower Museum)
23. Prosperity of Flower Market (花市の賑わい)
Mogami-benibana got the best evaluation in the quality and quantity at the beginning of Edo period and Yamagata was its central exchanging place. At the earliest time of benibana cultivation, all the process of growing and drying of the flower would be done by each farmer, but the increase of its producing tended to manage by some brokers and the most of processing came to be done in the intensive works. Enough space and warehouse were needed to process from cultivation to production. So it was impossible for small-size farmer of merchants to produce an accumulated quality of benibana. Large scale merchants and traders who live around Yamagata came to manage all the trades of benibana industry.
"Hana-ichi" (花市) was the place where the traders bought the flower from farmers and its flower markets seemed to settle at about 1624-46. "Meibutsu-beni-no-sode"(『名物紅乃袖』), the document to tell the prosperity preserved in Jifukuji Temple in Yamagata, described below.
"At Yamagata, the remote place from Kyoto, the buyers and traders were all crazy: some were almost naked, some came from other countries and enhanced its trading".
Kyoto merchants came all the way from to merchandize benibana. The descriptions of "Furyu-matsunoki-makura" (『風流松木枕』) in 1764 is like this : A lot of the people - men or women - were crazy to trade, because they could earn their living of the whole of a year".
The prosperity of benibana markets seemed to be tremendous.