The tobacco plant, Nicotiana tabacum. Public-domain photograph.
Farmers who had borrowed to expand during the war watched crop prices collapse in 1920, and the rural depression began years before the stock market broke.
A farm household that had mortgaged the place to buy more land or a machine could not meet the note when wheat or cotton stopped covering it.
A farm household with a smaller debt and an older clear title could survive a bad price and still put off every purchase the town merchant was waiting for.
A country bank that had lent on wartime land values, or a dealer who had sold machinery on credit, held paper the new prices would not support.
During the war, European demand and a government guarantee on the wheat price had made expansion look safe.
In 1920 the guarantee was gone and European farms were producing again, and crop prices fell hard.
Land bought dear could not carry the debt, and banks in farm counties kept failing through the 1920s while many city payrolls recovered.
James H. Shideler, The Farm Crisis, 1919-1923 (1957)