High Quality Content by WIKIPEDIA articles! The short story Subsoil by Nicholson Baker first appeared in The New Yorker periodical on June 27, 1994.Subsoil is a terrifying, yet humorous tale of a man, Nyle T. Milner, who meets his doom after being assaulted and forced by attacking, sprouting potatoes that lure agriculturalists into their sleepy Krebs Cycle.