A18-Sunday News, February 10, 1980

Growing giant vegetables in Mexico

SAN DIEGO (UPI) - Every
now and then Bill Robinson
takes the 10-pound onion out
of his freezer and con-
templates it.

Behind the gargantuan
vegetable hes the strange
tale, difficult to believe, of
-the wonder farmers from
outer space.

Even if the explanation is
nonsense, there is no
denying the reality of the
onion, or the photographs
Robinson has of cabbages
three feet wide and collard
greens up to 5 feet long.

Robinson is the in-
’ formation officer for the San
Diego Police Department.
Local reporters generally
give him high marks for
credibility.

It was while vacationing in
Irapuato, Mexico, Robinson
said, he discovered farmer
Jose Carmen Carcia, ac-
cording to a copyright report
in San Diego Home and
Garden magazine.

Garcia’s produce is the
wonder of the marketplace
in Valle de Santiago, a
village 260 miles northwest
of Mexico City near
Irapuato, he said. Towns-
people gather to marvel at
his 8pound onions. Cab-
bages weighing from 44 to 60
pounds, and collard greens
as big as palm fronds.
Housewives swear they are
as tender and tasty as
normal-sized vegetables.

Yet, Garcia, 50, plows his
3-acre plot behind a mule or

horse, just like his neigh-
bors, buys the same seed at
the village general store, and
does not use fertilizers.

A local photographer,
Oscar Arredondo, intrigued
by a‘radish the size of a
softball, asked Garcia his
secret.

Garcia told him that in
1947, as a youth of 17
struggling to -make_ ends
meet on the farm inherited

from his father, he met a
stranger, who looked and
talked like a Mexican
peasant.

The stranger said he had
been held captive by tall, fair
humanoids in a_ tunnel
beneath a nearby volcano.
His captors spoke unintelli-
gible gibberish, he said, and
lived on outsize vegetables.

He said he had memorized
their magic formula, which
he sketched on a scrap of
paper. He told Garcia to
concentrate on the symbols
and that after a period of
time, the “message” would
become clear, then walked
away.

After several sleepless
nights, Garcia got the
revelation — whatever it was
— planted the seeds and has
produced Bigantic
vegetables ever since.

Arredondo wrote about
Garcia in the  Irapuato
newspaper, FE] Alacran and a
Mexico City magazine,
Impacto.

he onions from outer spac

An imaginative
Agriculture Ministry official
took up Garcia’s challenge
to prove his crop-growing
prowess in a grow-off against
any farmer on neutral soil.

The ministry laid out two
20 acre plots near Campo de
Tangasneque in Tampico
state in December, 1978.
The competing tract was
farmed by a team of ministry
experts and local farmers
hand picked from a nearby

cooperative, using fer-
tilizers.
At harvest time, the

results were tallied. Garcia
still has the tote sheets, he
said, showing the ministry
team averaged 30 tons of
produce per acre, compared
to his 106 tons.

IN ARGENTINA

A ministry official
thanked Garcia for his time
and told him he could sell
the produce, disappointing
Garcia, who had expected to
be summoned to Mexico
City to reveal the formula to
the government, which did
not even keep samples.

“Why isn't the world
interested?” Arredondo
asked Robinson in the
chance sidewalk cafe en-
counter in Irapuato that put
Robinson on Garcia's trail.

Robinson and Arredondo
went to the farm north of
town where Garcia
presented Robinson with the
monumental onion. Why
didn't the government ex-
perts give him recognition?

“Perhaps,” he replied,
“they took it personally.”

Prisoners tortured

LONDON (UPD - Hundreds
of prisoners in Argentina's
are
tortured with electric cattle
prods and some are drugged
un-
conscious from a plane into
the sea, two former camp

concentration camps

and then dropped

inmates said Monday.

Speaking at a
conference called by

news
the
human rights group Amnesty
International, the two men
who spent more than year

in the camps said torture for
Jewish prisoners also in-
kneeling before a
Hitler or

cludes
picture of
Mussolini.

Amnesty
based in London,
“spent months

more than

Argentina since 1976.

Ad paid tor by Committee to He etect Hon Huntington

International,
said it
Cross-
checking” the story before
releasing the report of what
has happened to some of the
15,000 people
reported missing in

e Woman's will orders

execution of pet

SAN FRANCISCO (UPI) -
The Society for the
Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals says it will go to
court to block a_ dead
woman's will condemning
her pet dog to death — out
of love.

“She felt in her heart
nobody could bestow on the
dog the kind of attention,
love and devotion she
could,” said SPCA director
Richard Avanzino.

Mary Murphy's
admitted t probate
Friday, instructed that Sido,
a blonde and white female
sheltie, or a collie mix, be
put to sleep to keep her from
being lonely.

will,

Mrs. Murpny, who lived
alone in a Mission District
apartment, died just before
Christmas. Sido, her pet dog
for eight years, was taken to
the SPCA shelter.

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Avanzing- said the SPCA’
has decided to fight in the

- courts for Sido’s life.

“In the eyes of the law,”
he said, “the owner is
correct. A dog is considered
personal property or chattel,
a disposable item, like a
piece of furniture.

“We'll argue that — and.
keep on appealing, if
necessary, regardless of. the
number of years involved.
We will make sure this dog
lives.”

Avanzino said four at-
torneys have offered to take
up the cause — without a
fee.

Since Sido's fate was made
public last month, the SPCA
has received more than 250
letters agreeing she shouid
be saved. “More than 100
people have offered her their
homes and their hearts,”

Avanzino said.

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