The Biggest Candy Cane?

I must admit that the Merry Christmas Village elves can be pretty competitive at times. Mrs. Claus and I were at the Candy Cane shop today, and she made a comment on how much bigger the canes seemed to be in one particular basket. In this basket were five canes that were made by Elf Zez. They were about a foot long! Zez was so proud of these canes. He mentioned that he had made them bigger as a special request from the reindeer. Elf McKarr overheard the conversation and about five minutes later she was proudly strolling out from the candy cane kitchen with three canes that were double the size of Zez's! But, Elf Zez wasn't about to be shown up so he immediately called his crew of elves and the competition was on. Ho! Ho! Ho! Elf McKarr started ringing her bell and immediately had ten helper elves stirring pots and firing up the big stoves. Zez started his crew singing happily, for he knows that the happier the crew, the bigger and better the candy canes. Mrs. Claus and I found some comfortable chairs to sit to watch the candy cane competition. Zez would come out with a three foot cane, followed by McKarr with a four-foot cane - then Zez would bring out a five footer - and then McKarr with a six footer. We started piling up some very big canes! The competition was getting out of hand!
Mrs. Claus is very smart and she knew that these elves wouldn't stop until they ran out of sugar and peppermint - so, she raised her hand and stopped everyone for the moment and said, "You know, making the biggest candy cane is easy, and I'm very impressed with these 10-foot high candy canes. It's just, well, for me it's the one who can make the absolute smallest candy cane is the Elf I want to meet!"
For a moment all the elves just stood there wondering what to do next. So I brought Elves Zez and McKarr together and told them they could borrow some of my microscopes and see if they could make a candy cane small enough that the only way to see them is with a 50X maginfication. Both the elves smiled brightly at me and said they wanted us back next week for the judging!