132 The Nineteenth Century 



of the century;' while, at Rampton and Cottenham, a considerable amount 

 of fruit was being grown by the villagers. In 1873, there were about 1000 

 acres of fruit within 10 miles of Histon; by 1894, this acreage had in- 

 creased to 3000. The other fruit-fanning area on the upland was around 

 Meldreth and Melbourn, where, during the fifties, a substantial acreage of 

 fruit had been planted. 



It is little wonder, then, that the Report of 1895 could state that the 

 profits made from fruit growing and market gardening "have in the last 

 few years been more satisfactory than those from ordinary farming".* 

 From the depression of the nineteenth century, the twentieth was to inherit 

 at any rate some beginnings of prosperity. 



NOTE ON RAILWAY CONSTRUCTION 



"The principal rivers are the Cam or Granta, and the Ouse: the latter 

 river is navigable from Cambridge to Lynn, in Norfolk, to which port 

 large quantities of the grain produce of this county hitherto have been sent 

 by this navigation ; but it wiU soon be a question whether the corn-produce 

 wiU not in future travel to London by the railroad ".^ Thus wrote S. Jonas 

 in 1 847, two years after the opening of the London-Cambridge-Norwich 

 main line. The other railway lines quickly followed. 



The lines passing through the County mostly formed part of the Great 

 Eastern system. But three other railway companies also ran over lines of 

 the G.E.R. Co. to Cambridge: the Great Northern from Hitchin via 

 Shepreth; the Midland from Kettering via Huntingdon; and the London 

 and North- Western from Bedford and Bletchley via Hills Rd. Junct. 

 Cambridge; wliile, in the north of the County, the Peterborough, 

 Wisbech, Sutton Railway was part of the Midland and Great Northern 

 Joint Committee's hne. The various lines (see Fig. 32) were opened"* at 

 the following dates: 



1. The G.E.R. main line from London to Norwich, 



entering the County at Chesterford, and leaving it 



after passing through Cambridge and Ely. 30 July 1845. 



2. Ely to March and Peterborough. 9 December 1846. 



3. March to Wisbech. 3 May 1847. 



' H. BAdei HiLggard, Rural England (1902), ii, 51. In 1873, the manufacture of jam 

 was started at Histon. See p. 156 below. 



^ W. Fox, op. cit. p. 6. 



3 S.Jonas, "On the Farming of Cambridgeshire", Joi/r. Roy. Agric. Soc. (1847), 

 p. 38. 



^ For this information I am much indebted to Mr J. H. Wardley of King's Cross 

 Station. Mr E. D. Robinson of Cambridge has also given me help in this connection: 

 an older hst is in E. Conybeare's A History of Cambridgeshire (1897), p. 279. 



