Causes of the Dust Bowl
Elena Petrova

The Dust Bowl was a period of terrible dust storms that hit the southern Great Plains of the United States in the 1930s. In this essay I will explain the main causes of the disaster and how it was brought to an end.

The disaster had both natural and human causes. Several years of drought dried out the soil at the same time that millions of acres of native prairie grass had been plowed up to plant wheat. The deep roots of the prairie grasses had once held the soil in place and kept moisture in the ground even during dry years. Once that grass was gone, the exposed topsoil could easily blow away when the winds came.

Farmers had expanded their fields quickly during and after the First World War, when wheat prices were high and new tractors made it possible for one family to plow much more land than before. When prices fell at the start of the Great Depression, many farmers plowed even more land to make up for their losses.

The government responded by teaching better farming methods. Farmers learned to plow along the contours of their land, to rotate their crops, and to plant rows of trees to slow the wind. Normal rainfall also returned, and by the early 1940s the worst of the Dust Bowl was over.

In conclusion, the Dust Bowl was caused by a combination of drought and poor farming practices, and it ended when farmers changed their methods and the rain came back.
