ty housewife makes bed quilts and as many as 25 or 30 of these are
not infrequently found in a small cabin. The floors are rough and not
always of matched lumber, while the cabins are poorly built. The usual
means of heating, and cooking, is the big fireplace. Sometimes the
chimney is built of sticks daubed over with mud, the top of the chimney
often failing to reach the ridge of the roof. Fires sometimes result.
Tables and chairs are rough and rude. Sheets are few, the mattresses are
of cotton, corn shucks or pine straw, and the pillows of home grown
feathers.

The following regarding the cooking of the Alabama Negro is taken from a
letter published in Bulletin No. 38, U. S. Department of Agriculture,
Office of the Experiment Stations:

"The daily fare is prepared in very simple ways. Corn meal is mixed
with water and baked on the flat surface of a hoe or griddle. The
salt pork is sliced thin and fried until very brown and much of the
grease tried out. Molasses from cane or sorghum is added to the
fat, making what is known as 'sap,' which is eaten with the corn
bread. Hot water sweetened with molasses is used as a beverage.
This is the hill of fare of most of the cabins on the plantations
of the 'black belt' three times a day during the year. It is,
however, varied at times; thus collards and turnips are boiled with
the bacon, the latter being used with the vegetables to supply fat
'to make it rich.' The corn meal bread is sometimes made into
so-called 'cracklin bread,' and is prepared as follows: A piece of
fat bacon is fried until it is brittle; it is then crushed and
mixed with corn meal, water, soda and salt, and baked in an oven
over the fireplace.... One characteristic of the cooking is that
all meats are fried or otherwise cooked until they are crisp.
Observation among these people reveals the fact that very many of
them suffer from indigestion in some form."

As elsewhere the advances are supplied by the planter or some merchant.
The legal rate of interest is 8 per cent, but no Negro ever borrows
money at this rate. Ten per cent. per year is considered cheap, while on
short terms the rate is often 10 per cent. per week. The average tenant
pays from 12.5 per cent. to 15 per cent. for his advances, which are
sold at an average of 25 per cent. higher than cash prices on the
average. To avoid any possible trouble it is qui