Idaho Potato

In the days before television or Photoshop, the farmers in Idaho made their own amusement by challenging each other to grow the juiciest watermelon, the sweetest pear, or the orangest pumpkin. In 1946, Farmer Homer Smith took up the challenge to grow the biggest potato. He spent the long winter in solitary contemplation of this conundrum, and in the spring he put his half-baked theory to the test, employing a combination of careful cross fertilization and liberal application of organic material obtained from the dairy farmer down the road. To the amazement of all, he harvested this whopper in the fall. Being both illiterate and furtive, Farmer Smith neither wrote nor spoke of the details of this fantastic accomplishment, and he took the formula with him to the grave. For a brief time, his cousin Arthur, an insurance agent with a keen eye for a growth industry, had his own success selling potato damage insurance to local homeowners who feared what one of these big guys could do if it rolled off a flatbed truck and into their front parlor. Alas, a potato this big has never been grown again.