Alfred Charles True, Ph.D., Sc.D. (June 5, 1853 - 1929) was a United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 educator and agriculturist, a son of C. K. True

Charles Kittredge True

Charles Kittredge True was an American Methodist Episcopal clergyman, educator, and author, born in Portland, Me. He graduated at Harvard in 1832. He served as professor of intellectual and moral science in Wesleyan University , and financial agent of Wesleyan . He was the father of A. C...

. He was born at Middletown, Connecticut

Middletown, Connecticut

Middletown is a city located in Middlesex County, Connecticut, along the Connecticut River, in the central part of the state, 16 miles south of Hartford. In 1650, it was incorporated as a town under its original Indian name, Mattabeseck. It received its present name in 1653. In 1784, the central...

, and graduated from Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...

 in 1873, from which he also received his Sc.D. He was a teacher at Westfield normal school

Westfield State College

Westfield State University is a comprehensive, coeducational, four-year public university in Westfield, Massachusetts. It was founded in 1838 by noted educator and social reformer Horace Mann as the first public co-educational college in America without barrier to race, gender and economic class...

 in Westfield, Massachusetts

Westfield, Massachusetts

Westfield is a city in Hampden County, in the Pioneer Valley of western Massachusetts, United States. It is part of the Springfield, Massachusetts Metropolitan Statistical Area. The population was 41,094 at the 2010 census. The ZIP Code is 01085 for homes and businesses, 01086 for Westfield State...

, for several years, studied at Harvard

Harvard University

Harvard University is a private Ivy League university located in Cambridge, Massachusetts, United States, established in 1636 by the Massachusetts legislature. Harvard is the oldest institution of higher learning in the United States and the first corporation chartered in the country...

 in 1882-84, and served as an instructor at Wesleyan

Wesleyan University

Wesleyan University is a private liberal arts college founded in 1831 and located in Middletown, Connecticut. According to the Carnegie Foundation for the Advancement of Teaching, Wesleyan is the only Baccalaureate College in the nation that emphasizes undergraduate instruction in the arts and...

 in 1884-88. In 1888, he began working for the United States Department of Agriculture

United States Department of Agriculture

The United States Department of Agriculture is the United States federal executive department responsible for developing and executing U.S. federal government policy on farming, agriculture, and food...

. From 1893 to 1915, he was director of the Office of Experiment Stations. He 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 had supervision of the federal work and expenditures for agricultural experiment stations in all the states and in Alaska

Alaska

Alaska is the largest state in the United States by area. It is situated in the northwest extremity of the North American continent, with Canada to the east, the Arctic Ocean to the north, and the Pacific Ocean to the west and south, with Russia further west across the Bering Strait...

 and Hawaii

Hawaii

Hawaii is the newest of the 50 U.S. states , and is the only U.S. state made up entirely of islands. It is the northernmost island group in Polynesia, occupying most of an archipelago in the central Pacific Ocean, southwest of the continental United States, southeast of Japan, and northeast of...

 (both territories at that time) and Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico

Puerto Rico , officially the Commonwealth of Puerto Rico , is an unincorporated territory of the United States, located in the northeastern Caribbean, east of the Dominican Republic and west of both the United States Virgin Islands and the British Virgin Islands.Puerto Rico comprises an...

 and Guam

Guam

Guam is an organized, unincorporated territory of the United States located in the western Pacific Ocean. It is one of five U.S. territories with an established civilian government. Guam is listed as one of 16 Non-Self-Governing Territories by the Special Committee on Decolonization of the United...

. He also supervised federal work and expenditures 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

Agricultural education

Agricultural education is instruction about crop production, livestock management, soil and water conservation, and various other aspects of agriculture. Agricultural education includes instruction in food education, such as nutrition...

.

In 1902 he was dean of the first graduate school of agriculture in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

, held at the Ohio State University

Ohio State University

The Ohio State University, commonly referred to as Ohio State, is a public research university located in Columbus, Ohio. It was originally founded in 1870 as a land-grant university and is currently the third largest university campus in the United States...

, and in 1914 he was president of the Association of American Agricultural Colleges and Experiment Stations.