PASADENA - Cotton king James G. Boswell II, who grew his family holdings into California's first agribusiness giant, has died of natural causes at his Indian Wells home. He was 86.

Boswell, who died Friday, will be memorialized April 22 during a 1 p.m. service at the Corcoran High School Memorial Stadium.

He inherited the reins of the J.G. Boswell Co., which has dominated California cotton growing for generations, when he was 29 after the death of his uncle, the Los Angeles Times reported.

Over the next 50 years, he more than tripled the size of his family farm in Corcoran, while his labs developed better seeds and cotton gins -- a model that would earn him a reputation for creating the template for modern agribusinesses, according to The Times. MORE