The legal allowance of food for slaves in North Carolina, is in the words of the law, "a quart of corn per day." See Haywood's Manual, 525. The legal allowance in Louisiana is more, a barrel [flour barrel] of corn, (in the ear,) or its equivalent in other grain, and a pint of salt a month. In the other slave states the amount of food for the slaves is left to the option of the master.
Thos. Clay, Esq., of Georgia, a slave holder, in his address before the Georgia Presbytery, 1833.
"The quantity allowed by custom is a peck of corn a week!"
The Maryland Journal, and Baltimore Advertiser, May 30, 1788.
"A single peck of corn a week, or the like measure of rice, is the ordinary quantity of provision for a hard-working slave; to which a small quantity of meat is occasionally, though rarely, added."
W.C. Gildersleeve, Esq., a native of Georgia, and Elder in the Presbyterian Church, Wilksbarre, Penn.
"The weekly allowance to grown slaves on this plantation, where I was best acquainted, was one peck of corn."
Wm. Ladd, of Minot, Maine, formerly a slaveholder in Florida.
"The usual allowance of food was one quart of corn a day, to a full task hand, with a modicum of salt; kind masters allowed a peck of corn a week; some masters allowed no salt."
Mr. Jarvis Brewster, in his "Exposition of the treatment of slaves in the Southern States," published in N. Jersey, 1815.