“Feeding is not sufficient,—­let facts speak.  On the coast, i.e.  Natchez and the Gulf of Mexico, the allowance was one barrel of ears of corn, and a pint of salt per month.  They may cook this in what manner they please, but it must be done after dark; they have no day light to prepare it by.  Some few planters, but only a few, let them prepare their corn on Saturday afternoon.  Planters, overseers, and negroes, have told me, that in pinching times, i.e. when corn is high, they did not get near that quantity.  In Miss., I know some planters who allowed their hands three and a half pounds of meat per week, when it was cheap.  Many prepare their corn on the Sabbath, when they are not worked on that day, which however is frequently the case on sugar plantations.  There are very many masters on “the coast” who will not suffer their slaves to come to the boats, because they steal molasses to barter for meat; indeed they generally trade more or less with stolen property.  But it is impossible to find out what and when, as their articles of barter are of such trifling importance.  They would often come on board our boats to beg a bone, and would tell how badly they were fed, that they were almost starved; many a time I have set up all night, to prevent them from stealing something to eat.”

3.  QUALITY OF FOOD.

Having ascertained the kind and quantity of food allowed to the slaves, it is important to know something of its quality, that we may judge of the amount of sustenance which it contains.  For, if their provisions are of an inferior quality, or in a damaged state, their power to sustain labor must be greatly diminished.

Thomas Clay, Esq. of Georgia, from an address to the Georgia Presbytery, 1834, speaking of the quality of the corn given to the slaves, says,

“There is often a defect here.”

Rev. Horace Moulton, a Methodist clergyman at Marlboro, Mass. and five years a resident of Georgia.

“The food, or ‘feed’ of slaves is generally of the poorest kind.”

The “Western Medical Reformer,” in an article on the diseases peculiar to negroes, by a Kentucky physician, says of the diet of the slaves;

“They live on a coarse, crude, unwholesome diet.”

Professor A.G.  Smith, of the New York Medical College; formerly a physician in Louisville, Kentucky.

I have myself known numerous instances of large families of badly fed negroes swept off by a prevailing epidemic; and it is well known to many intelligent planters in the south, that the best method of preventing that horrible malady, Chachexia Africana, is to feed the negroes with nutritious food.

4.  NUMBER AND TIME OF MEALS EACH DAY.

In determining whether or not the slaves suffer for want of food, the number of hours intervening, and the labor performed between their meals, and the number of meals each day, should be taken into consideration.