 The UFA's first provincial victory took place in 1910, and involved the construction of agricultural colleges. Premier Alexander Rutherford, always a stalwart ally of the University of Alberta, approved a plan to locate Alberta's first agricultural college on the university's campus, in Rutherford's home town of Strathcona. At the 1910 UFA convention, a resolution proposed putting the college in southern Alberta, though it was supplanted by an Edward Michener motion calling for the UFA's leadership to consult with the province on a mutually amenable location. After consultation with the UFA, Sifton agreed that, in addition to the college, agricultural schools would be built around the province, and that farmers would be guaranteed representation on the college's board. In fact, Sifton held off on the establishment of the college all together in favour of the creation of seven demonstration farms in different regions of the province. In 1912, the government announced the creation of agricultural colleges in connection with three of these farms (all of them in the ridings of provincial cabinet ministers: Duncan Marshall's Olds, Claresholm in Archibald McLean's Lethbridge District, and Sifton's Vermilion).
