Horse dozer

Does anyone have more information about this dozer ?
Did it really exist ?

not sure about dirt plows but a vee plow for the horse trains was popular in the great white north. the horses pushed a vee plow along while other horses pulled a couple of sleighs with horse feed and freight. the horses had special shoes fitted to them for traction on ice and snow. then the cats came along and the horses were replaced.

thansk
KoO
Published Author

Hi, Quad.
From what I can gather - although I can't remember back that far, in spite of what some people might tell you - such things did exist. In fact, that one is a pretty flash one, having that cart behind with a seat for the 'driver'/'drover'. There is a brief description in R. G. LeTourneau's auto-biography, "Mover Of Men And Mountains", of one of these jiggers and how it was used - - - - and how it caused all sorts of headaches for the poor joker charged with using it. I think they originally appeared sometime in the 1880's.

Apparently, going forward pushing the load was not too bad. It was when you needed to back up or turn around to get back for the NEXT push that the fun began. It seems that horses aren't all that keen on walking backwards, especially towing that blade dragging on the ground and mules are apparently even worse. If you chose to try turn them around to walk them forward to get to where you needed to be for the next push, they had to turn that blade with them while it was dragging on the round 'cos there was no way to lift it. I gather it made for a long and tiring day. But I imagine it beat the heck out of shovelling all that dirt over the edge by hand.

Thanks for sharing the illustration.

Just my 0.02.