"The JG Boswell Conundrum: Water Water Everywhere, Yet No Liquidity

JG Boswell continues to prosper in silence. The owner of some 142,000 acres of prime California land (along with 30,000 in Australia) continues to grow cotton and other crops...but there is much more to the story than land.

JG Boswell’s cotton land is on the dry bed of Tulare Lake. Below Tulare Lake sits an aquifer that according to a recent report in Money Week titled “how to profit from the world’s water crisis,” is estimated to hold an estimated 400,000 to 2,000,000 acre feet of water. (An acre foot measures the amount of water that would cover the area of one acre by one foot.)...The article also states that the California water agency values water at $10,000 per acre foot, giving Boswell’s aquifer alone a potential value of between $4 and $20 billion. That by the way, does not include the value of the land. While we could only hope this analysis is accurate, we discount it by our very nature.

Incidentally, if you wish to do further research on Boswell, good luck. You won’t find financial statements; the company does not have to file with the SEC. But for an excellent company history and for some perspective, we recommend a book about the company and it’s founder The King Of California: J. G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire..."

[edited for fair use purposes- more at the link below]

http://seekingalpha.com/article/22899-the-jg-boswell-conundrum-water-water-everywhere-yet-no-liquidity

J.G. Boswell Company Company Profile

J.G. Boswell grows and mills cotton in the California's San Joaquin Valley. The secretive company is the country's largest cotton producer. About one third of its 150,000 California acres are devoted to cotton. It was once said that the company produced enough cotton in one year to produce 840,000 pairs of boxer shorts...

http://biz.yahoo.com/ic/116/116057.html

The late historic owner, J. G. Boswell II, died this past April, 2009.

http://www.latimes.com/news/obituaries/la-me-james-boswell7-2009apr07,0,2341062.story

http://articles.latimes.com/2003/oct/27/entertainment/et-arax27

http://www.amazon.com/King-California-Boswell-Making-American/dp/1586480286

King Of California: J. G. Boswell and the Making of a Secret American Empire, by Mark Arax and Rick Wartzman, won Stanford University's William Saroyan International Prize For Writing:

Critically acclaimed and a Times bestseller, The King of California is ripe for discovery by a whole new audience eager to learn of the great untold stories of the American West and American business. The story of J.G. Boswell, the biggest farmer in America, is a tale of how the Boswell family transplanted themselves from plantation Georgia to gain control of the center of California, converting lush wetlands into vast cotton fields...

http://www-sul.stanford.edu/saroyan/arax.html

A quickie from Wiki, on the recently deceased J. G. Boswell Jr.'s father:

"James Griffin Boswell (May 13, 1882 - September 11, 1952), was founder of the J. G. Boswell Company, known today as the world's largest privately owned farm. Primary crops include Pima cotton, alfalfa hay, tomatoes, onions, and wheat, all cultivated on some 135,000 acres (550 km2) mostly in Kings County, California. Boswell, who came to Pasadena, California as a regional cotton broker from Greene county, Georgia, established his company in Corcoran, California in 1921. From 1952 to 1984, the company was headed by his nephew, James G. Boswell II (1923 - 2009), who is credited with the company's massive growth during the last half of the twentieth century. Currently, the J. G. Boswell Company is led by the son of J. G. Boswell II, James W. Boswell.[1]

Born in Penfield, Georgia, J. G. Boswell was the son of Georgia State Legislator Joseph Osgood Boswell and Minnie Griffin both members of pioneer Georgia families. He was married twice, first to Alaine Buck (1886 - 1938) and secondly to Ruth Chandler (1897 - 1987) daughter of Los Angeles Times publisher Harry Chandler and his second wife Emma Marian Otis, Secretary of the Times-Mirror Company.[2]"

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Griffin_Boswell

And a related note on Cotton Subsidies by the Federal Government:

100% Rotten

America's cotton subsidy program has morphed into a budget-busting mess so twisted it even sends taxpayer money to the French. Now it threatens to ignite a perilous trade war. Which leads us to a question for the U.S. Congress: Are you out of your cotton-pickin' minds?

By G. Pascal Zachary

December 1, 2005

(Business 2.0) – On Sept. 27, hundreds of America's top cotton growers gathered in the convention center in Visalia, Calif., in the heart of the San Joaquin Valley. They'd come for the annual meeting of Calcot, one of the largest cotton producer co-ops in the United States, and they were in a festive mood. They were winding up a record harvest; Calcot will sell $500 million worth of cotton this year, fully 10 percent of the U.S. crop. Inside the convention center, the farmers sat down at tables bedecked with candles shaped like cotton bales and floral centerpieces accented with fluffy bolls fresh from the fields. They ate steak and toasted the robust health of the American system of growing cotton.

For growers like these, old King Cotton is alive and well, a generous liege indeed. But for all the rest of us, the king is, with each passing year, more and more of a royal pain...

http://money.cnn.com/magazines/business2/business2_archive/2005/12/01/8364585/index.htm [linked at my signature]

You are like a lolcat.