"They give 'em three pounds of meat a week, peck of meal, pint of
molasses; some of them give 'em three to five pounds of flour on a
Sunday morning according to the size of the family. The majority of them
had shorts from the wheat. Some of the slaves would clean up a flat in
the bottoms and plant rice in it. That was where they would allow the
slaves to have truck patches.
"Some few of them had chickens that was allowed to have them. Same of
them had owners that wouldn't allow their slaves to own chickens. They
never allowed them to have hogs or cows. Wherever there was a family
that had a whole lot of children they would allow them to have a cow to
milk for to get milk for their children. They claimed the cow, but the
master was the owner of it. It belonged to him. He would just let them
milk it. He would just let them raise their children off of the milk it
gave.