The Encyclopedia Americana (1920)/True, Alfred Charles

TRUE, Alfred Charles, American educator and agriculturist: b. Middletown, Conn., 5 June 1853. He was graduated at Wesleyan University, Connecticut, from which he also received a decrees of D.Sc., and after a graduate course at Harvard, 1882-84, was an instructor at Wesleyan, 1884-88. He then entered the United States Department of Agriculture; was successively editor, vice-director and director (1888-1915) of the office of experiment stations, and became director of the State Relation Service in 1915. For many years he was editor-in-chief of the Experiment Station Record and the Experiment Station Work, and had charge of investigations in irrigation, drainage and human nutrition. He still has supervision of the Federal work and expenditures for agricultural experiment stations in all the States and in Alaska, Porto Rico, Hawaii and Guam, and for co-operative extension work in agriculture and home economics throughout the United States under the Smith-Lever Act of 8 May 1914, together with investigations in home economics and agricultural education. In 1914 he was president of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations, and since 1902 has been dean of the Graduate School of Agriculture maintained by the association. He is the author of monographs on agricultural experiment stations in the United States and on agricultural education.