R a e-J a k P u b l i s h i n g

      Newport Beach, California

      Published by Rae-Jak Books

      A division of Rae-Jak Publishing, LLC

      220 Newport Center Drive, Suite 11

      Newport Beach, CA 92660

      This novel is a work of fiction. Names, characters, locations, stories, and situations are either fiction or the product of the author’s imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or deceased, events, and/or locations is purely coincidental.

      ISBN 978-0-9831536-3-4

      Copyright © 2013 by Spencer R. Scarcello

      All Rights Reserved

      Printed in the United States of America

      Acknowledgements

      I truly believe this novel was divinely inspired, so I would like to thank God for giving the idea to me, and all the help thereafter. Each person that assisted me along the way is a Christian, not by design; it just worked out that way.

      My wife Carol Scarcello, friend Marty Enniss, and her husband Pastor Gary Enniss were key in encouraging me to write the book.

      Authors Norma Roland, William H. Reagan, and John Andrews helped get me started, teaching me what I needed to know and how to go about the whole process.

      Our dear friend Lynne Jonsson painted the cover art.

      Best selling author Jack Peterson mentored me through the editing and publishing process.

      MY SINCERE THANKS TO YOU ALL.

      CHAPTER 1

      INTRODUCTION

      My name is Ralph Diamond. My wife Tina and I live in Spruce Valley Lake, Central California, and this is my story.

      I woke up early on the morning of July 18, 2023 and rushed out to the garage to see the results of my experiment. As I looked at the four five-gallon buckets on the floor, I was ecstatic and let out a loud scream. My experiment had been a success. My wife Tina, who was brushing her teeth at the time, dropped her toothbrush, burst into the garage, and asked: “Ral, are you okay? I heard screaming!”

      She looked as if she were foaming at the mouth from the toothpaste, so I jokingly said, “You look like you’re more excited than I am.” She gave me a puzzled look, then I pointed to the buckets, and she started screaming. We embraced each other for a long time, and we both had tears of joy in our eyes. This could truly change the world! I was testing a formula which when added to water will germinate seeds in a matter of minutes, and plants would grow to full maturity in a matter of hours.

      The night before around 11 p.m., I filled each bucket halfway with water and added one drop of the formula I was testing. Next, I added just a squirt more of water from the garden hose to fully dilute the formula. I then added a few radish and carrot seeds to the first bucket, string beans in the second, corn in the third, and tomato seeds in the fourth one.

      The first bucket now was nearly bursting with beautiful firm radishes and carrots, each much larger than normal. I tasted them, and they were more flavorful than any I have ever eaten. The string beans in the second bucket were also fully developed. They had risen out of the bucket and were sprawled about six feet across the garage floor. There were more beans on each plant than I had ever seen before. In bucket number three, there were four corns stalks about five feet tall, filled with more ears than I had ever seen on corn before. Bucket four had three tomato vines that had grown nearly halfway across the garage floor, with hundreds of blossoms on them.

      I wanted to test the formula both indoors and out using various types of lighting and water. I contacted my friend Duke Holdman who was vacationing at a new seaside RV park near San Francisco. I asked if he would be kind enough to bring me back five gallons of sea water. He was just getting ready to return home and was glad to oblige. Over the next several days I tried every combination of water, lighting, and location I could think of. It didn’t seem to matter which type of lighting I used ― fluorescent, incandescent, LED, halogen, or sunlight ― the results were always the same. I tried everything from tap water to ocean water; again, there was no difference.

      I grouped the various seeds I had purchased into categories and compiled a chart of how long each type of seed took to grow to a fully mature plant. I found that simple plants such as herbs grew very quickly in about two to four hours. Vegetables such as peas and beans required four to six hours. Larger plants like sweet corn grew to ten feet in height in twelve to fourteen hours, and tomato plants stretched an amazing thirty-two feet around the garage floor in sixteen to eighteen hours with hundreds of large luscious tomatoes on them. The only additional task was adding more water to the larger plants as they grew.

      I had to sit down at the end of my experimenting and let the gravity of this breakthrough sink in. My God! I thought. This could mean the end of world hunger and possibly the beginning of world peace. I felt I finally had all the information I needed to go to the next step ― contacting the media.

      We live about an hour outside Sacramento, so I called the Channel 19 news department, the largest in the area, and explained what I had in my possession. They took my name and phone number and told me they would call back. About two hours later I received a call from a man who introduced himself as Robert Ulson, the head of the Channel 19 news department. He seemed cautiously interested in what I had to say, but I could tell he was very skeptical. He thanked me for contacting them and said he would send someone to check it out.

      A few hours later my gate bell rang, and I pressed the button to open it. An older model sub-compact pulled up in the driveway and a very attractive young lady exited. She extended her hand and said, “Hi, I’m Misty Lane. I’m an intern from Channel 19 news here to follow up on your phone call.”

      “My name is Ralph Diamond,” I said. “Everyone calls me Ral.”

      “It’s a pleasure to meet you, Ral,” she said.

      When I looked at her I was kind of disappointed as I was expecting a reporter and a news van, not an intern.

      I took her into the garage to show her why I contacted them. By now nearly the entire garage was filled with plants of all types; they covered almost the entire garage floor, with some climbing up the walls nearly to the ceiling.

      “Wow,” she exclaimed. “When did you plant these?”

      “Some about a week ago and others around twenty hours ago,” I replied.

      She immediately began taking pictures with her phone and said, “I’ll need to document this from the very beginning.”

      ”I thought as much,” I said. “If you will help me throw this stuff away, we can get started.”

      She was more than happy to oblige, as I told her she could take whatever she wanted. “I’m going to let you do the experiment yourself to assure you there isn’t anything deceitful going on.” After the garage was back to its normal condition, I told Misty to take four buckets and fill them halfway with water. She did, asking, “What’s next?” I handed her a small eyedropper of the formula and told her to add one drop to each bucket, and then add a squirt of water from the hose to mix in the formula. Next, I gave her a plastic storage box, which held about a hundred seed packets.

      “Pick four of anything you like and put three seeds of each type in a separate bucket,” I directed.

      “Okay,” she said. “What now?”

      “Now we wait,” I replied.

      I grabbed a couple of folding chairs from the house, brought them into the garage, and sat down. She took a few pictures and sat down beside me. I showed her the chart