Viewing page 7 of 255

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

6

Dr Holt know they were free. Poor deluded creatures. They did not know that by the laws of North Carolina, and of most other states, if a servant under contract to serve for a definite period should refuse to serve out the whole time, to a day, he can not recover a cent for the services rendered. - See Brown vs White N C Reports 2 Jones 403 - Winstead vs Reid [[Bus6?]] N C R 76 and Am Ed of Smith's Leading Cases Vol 2 p 1

This was the way all the plaintiffs in this case acted Not one of them but what felt free to go and come just when he pleased, and they went off most of their time and worked but little as is shown by the proof.

The number of field hands old and young, as proved by both plaintiffs and defendant was about 60, and no cotton was planted on the place in the year 1865, and there was but about 100 acres of wheat to harvest and somewhere about 300 bushels of poor oats harvested, a very small crop. Now it is in proof by a number of witnesses who are practical farmers, that 20 acres of corn to the hand, and other grain and provision crops in proportion is but a common quantity of corn to raise to the hand. At this rate the plaintiffs ought to have raised 1200 [[strikethrough]] hundred [[/strikethrough]] acres of corn for the defendant.

It may be said that this is largely over the everage for many of the hands were small. But I insist that this is but a Small, or at least a moderate estimate for their labor, for they had less than a third of the usual crops of wheat and oats to harvest and they put in but about 100 acres of wheat when they should have put in 400 acres and they put in no winter oats at all, and by reducing the amount