Wedge plow

[6] Early roads were often rolled rather than plowed to compact accumulated snow into a surface suitable for sleighs drawn by draft animals.

[8] In the case where snow was tightly packed or frozen, manual labor might still be used to clear the tracks.

After three hours of toil-there was a tremendous jerk, a forward movement of a few moments and we were abreast of the station.

"[8] Henry David Thoreau also noted in his poems the "steady and cheerful valor of the men who inhabit the snow-plough for their winter quarters...and [to] behold the ploughmen covered with snow and rime, their heads peering above the mould-board.

Wedge plows are still currently used by railways as a less expensive method for clearing snow drifts from the tracks.