Excerpts from the Report: Pesticides are essential to modern agriculture for the effective control of pests and diseases that attack crops and livestock. In recent years, use of pesticides has increased significantly. Nearly every U.S. farmer now uses pesticides, and most own equipment needed to apply them. Equipment for applying pesticides includes devices to dispense insecticides, herbicides, fungicides, miticides, nematocides, rodenticides, soil fumigants, defoliants, and desiccants. The first implements farmers used to apply pesticides were crude, inexpensive, hand-operated devices. Modem equipment is often more complicated and costly as well as more precise, versatile, and easy to handle. The larger units are power-driven. This report discusses the amount, type, cost, and regional distribution of the ownership of pesticide application equipment used by farm operators in 1964. Emphasis is on power-driven sprayers and dusters, and on machine attachments. The report does not include data on equipment to dispense materials used only in home or garden, or disinfectants and medicines for livestock.