Hackfalls

Hackfalls Arboretum is an arboretum in New Zealand. It was founded in the 1950s by Bob Berry. It is part of Hackfalls Station, a sheep and cattle farm of about 10 square kilometres, owned by the Berry family. The farm is in Tiniroto, a tiny village in the eastern part of the North Island, between Gisborne (town) and Wairoa.
The arboretum covers 0.56 km², along the borders of two lakes, and has about 3,500 species of trees and shrubs. It includes many different oaks "spaced in rolling pastureland, allowing each to develop fully, and limbed up to enable grass to grow underneath".Friar 1996, p. 109 The most important part of the collection is about 50 different taxa of Mexican oaks.

Geography

Tiniroto is situated on the inland road (the so-called Tiniroto Road, former State Highway (SH) 36) between Gisborne and Wairoa. The distance from Gisborne is about 60 km, from Wairoa 40. The Ruakaka Road is a gravel road of about 20 km, that leads from Tiniroto, with a wide curve, crossing the Hangaroa River two times, past Donneraille Park, back to the Tiniroto Road. Berry Road branches off from this Ruakaka Road about 1 km outside Tiniroto. 3 km further up on Berry Road is the homestead of Hackfalls.
You have then passed Lake Kaikiore which together with Lake Karangata form the “wetlands” of Hackfalls Station. Lake Kaikiore is 5 ha, Lake Karangata 10 ha.

Altitude on Hackfalls Station varies between about 120 m and 388 m, being 270 m at the homestead.The information in this article is taken from: Berry 2007, p. 1/2, unless otherwise stated
The hill country of the Tiniroto district was formed in a big landslide from the North and East which occurred thousands of years ago.Berry 2007 says: about 7000 years ago; Clapperton 1995 says that it is thought this happened between 2000 and 4000 years ago, possibly at the same time as the landslide that blocked the valley that led to the formation of Lake Waikaremoana The lakes around Tiniroto were formed then. On steeper slopes the soils are derived from a yellow clay. On more level areas the soils consist of volcanic ash deposits (pumice) of about 50 cm.
The station has an average annual rainfall of about 1,650 mm, with a few light snowfalls expected each winter.

The Māori occupation brought fires which destroyed much of the original forest cover, except in ravines and near the Hangaroa River. From 1880 onward, European settlers cleared most of the remaining forest, scrubs and ferns, replacing it by grassland.
At Hackfalls a few remnants of the original plant cover remain, the largest of which consists of about 40,000 square metres, protected by a Queen Elizabeth II Trust covenant since 1985.

Hackfalls Station

The Whyte family from Scotland were the first European settlers that acquired the station. They called it 'Abbotsford'. The Berry family, who originally came from Knaresborough in Yorkshire, arrived in North Canterbury in 1883Clapperton 1995, p. 14 and settled at Tiniroto in 1889.Wilkie 2008, p. 13 Later the family moved to Gisborne. In 1916Clapperton 1995, p. 14 says: 1924 the Berry family bought 'Abbotsford' off the Whyte family and settled there. The name Hackfalls was given to the new property in 1984 when Bob's niece Diane and her husband Kevin Playle bought into and ran the stock side of the station, which left Bob free to concentrate on the arboretum from then on. The name Hackfalls was chosen as it is where the original Berry family lived in Yorkshire, England – Hackfall Wood, a forested wilderness in a deep part of the valley of the River Ure near the village of Grewelthorpe. “Its resemblance to the appearance of the Hangaroa as it would have appeared in 1889 is probably why Bobs grandfather assigned the name to the farm”.

It was not until 1950 that Berry road was metalled. Electricity did also not arrive until that time.

Hackfalls Station covers an area of about 10 square kilometres of hill country. The eastern and northern border are formed by Hangaroa River. The western border is roughly the Ruakaka Road. To the south the border is fenced. The station is a sheep and cattle breeding and fattening farm. Normal stock carrying capacity on the station is approximately 8000 stock units (sheep and cattle).

Hackfalls Arboretum covers 0.56 km² of the Station. Most of the arboretum is grazed by sheep, sometimes by cattle.

History

Bob Berry was born in 1916 at Tiniroto, and became a farmer, like his grandfather and his father were before. But he developed a special interest in trees. He lived at Hackfalls since 1924, and from the early fifties he took over the running of Hackfalls Station and began collecting trees. Until that time, only trees with a commercial interest were planted. Trees were grown for timber, or as fence posts (mainly Lombardy Poplars), or as fruit trees. From 1954 onward, soon after his father's deathClapperton 1995, p. 15 Berry began planting trees for their beauty and botanical interest, “starting with ease to grow willows and poplars, then a few oaks which he found did rather well there. Thus began a forty year love affair with the genus Quercus, resulting in his now having the biggest collection in the country, with Bob our leading authority on oaks”.Mortimer1997, p. 62
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