<P> The economic effects persisted, in part, because of farmers' failure to switch to more appropriate crops for highly eroded areas . Because the amount of topsoil had been reduced, it would have been more productive to shift from crops and wheat to animals and hay . During the Depression and through at least the 1950s, there was limited relative adjustment of farmland away from activities that became less productive in more - eroded counties . </P> <P> Some of the failure to shift to more productive agricultural products may be related to ignorance about the benefits of changing land use . A second explanation is a lack of availability of credit, caused by the high rate of failure of banks in the Plains states . Because banks failed in the Dust Bowl region at a higher rate than elsewhere, farmers could not get the credit they needed to buy capital to shift crop production . In addition, profit margins in either animals or hay were still minimal, and farmers had little incentive in the beginning to change their crops . </P> <P> Patrick Allitt recounts how fellow historian Donald Worster responded to his return visit to the Dust Bowl in the mid-1970s when he revisited some of the worst afflicted counties: </P> <Dl> <Dd> Capital - intensive agribusiness had transformed the scene; deep wells into the aquifer, intensive irrigation, the use of artificial pesticides and fertilizers, and giant harvesters were creating immense crops year after year whether it rained or not . According to the farmers he interviewed, technology had provided the perfect answer to old troubles, such of the bad days would not return . In Worster's view, by contrast, the scene demonstrated that America's capitalist high - tech farmers had learned nothing . They were continuing to work in an unsustainable way, devoting far cheaper subsidized energy to growing food than the energy could give back to its ultimate consumers . </Dd> </Dl>

Where did the soil from the dust bowl go