r from a loved one brings healing to the spirit,
and I need it more than I can tell.

There is scarcely a letter to her own family, in the large number
preserved, which does not express a longing for love and sympathy, a
craving that no public career, no devotion to any cause, however
absorbing, ever eradicates from the human soul.

Although so fully occupied, Miss Anthony did not neglect the beloved
cause of woman. This year, however, when she attempted to arrange for
the annual convention, she found to her dismay that every one of the
speakers whom she always depended upon was unable to be present because
of maternal duties. Some were anticipating an event, others had very
young infants, and the older women were kept at home by expected or
recently arrived grandchildren. She was used to overcoming obstacles,
but the conditions on this occasion were too much for her and, with
feelings which can not well be put into language, she was obliged to
give up the national convention, the only one omitted from 1850 to
1861.

Amidst the hard work and many disappointments of the year, there is one
gleam of humor in what was known to the family as "Susan's raspberry
experiment." During her wanderings she visited her friend Sarah Hallock
who had made a great success of raspberry culture, selling 40,000
baskets during the season, and she did not see why she could not do
quite as well. She unfolded her plan to her father, who supported her
in that as in everything and gave her as much ground as she desired.
While at home for a short time she had this underdrained and prepared,
$100 worth of raspberry plants set out and staked; then went away and
left the family to look after them. The father was in the city all day
attending to business, the sister Mary teaching school, the mother was
not well and there was no one else but the hired man, who knew nothing
about the culture of raspberries and was otherwise occupied; so the
bushes took their chances.

The fame of the experiment, however, spread far and wide, the
newspapers announced that Miss Anthony had bought a large farm and
stocked it with raspberries; that she had abandoned the platform and
taken up fruit culture. She received scores of letters asking
information as to the best plants and most successful methods, others
begging her not to give up public work, and many from friends who had
no end of fun at her expense. The bushes grew and bore fruit enough to
give the famil