People on a small island in the western Japan prefecture of Kagawa are making efforts to preserve what they believe to be the world's smallest melon, about the size of a quail's egg, in hopes of the little-known fruit becoming a tourist attraction.
     The variety of melon, called MG 16, is a native plant of Megi Island in the Seto Inland Sea, off Takamatsu, and is sometimes called ''Weed Melon'' as it grows naturally alongside farm land.
Unlike cultivated melons, the fruit reaches only 1.5 centimeters in diameter, making it the smallest melon in the world, according to Noriyuki Fujishita, an 80-year-old former professor at Osaka Prefecture University who discovered the fruit some 40 years ago.
     The melon, which has a bitter taste, used to be fed to livestock. But Yoshikiyo Kawai, chairman of the island's tourism association, said islanders will try making and selling pickles made from the fruit.
     ''We also want to build a melon museum, collecting melons from around the world,'' Kawai, 59, said.
     Kawai has led the project to cultivate mini melons after hearing about it from Fujishita last fall.
     Members of the association planted 10 seeds in May and two months later 30 melons were growing, Kawai said, adding they hope to harvest them by October.
==Kyodo