The staple meat was bacon, which combined
the virtues of easy production, ready curing and constant savoriness. On
Fowler's "Prairie" plantation, where the field hands numbered a little less
than half a hundred, the pork harvest throughout the eighteen-fifties,
except for a single year of hog cholera, yielded from eleven to
twenty-three hundred pounds; and when the yield was less than the normal,
northwestern bacon or barreled pork made up the deficit.[12]
In the matter of clothing, James Habersham sent an order to London in 1764
on behalf of himself and two neighbors for 120 men's jackets and breeches
and 80 women's gowns to be made in assorted sizes from strong and heavy
cloth. The purpose was to clothe their slaves "a little better than common"
and to save the trouble of making the garments at home.[13] In January,
1835, the overseer of one of the Telfair plantations reported that the
woolen weaving had nearly supplied the full needs of the place at the rate
of six or six and a half yards for each adult and proportionately for the
children.[14] In 1847, in preparation for winter, Charles Manigault wrote
from Paris to his overseer: "I wish you to count noses among the negroes
and see how many jackets and trousers you want for the men at Gowrie, .
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