The general treatment of milk and the management of cream have been already alluded to in a former chapter. It has been seen that the first requisites to successful dairy husbandry are good cows, and abundant and good feeding, adapted to the special object of the dairy, whether it be milk, butter, or cheese; and that, with both these conditions, an absolute cleanliness in every process, from the milking of the cow to bringing the butter upon the table, is indispensably necessary. Cleanliness may, indeed, with propriety be regarded as the chief requisite in the manufacture of good butter; for the least suspicion of a want of it turns the appetite at once, while both milk and cream are so exceedingly sensitive to the slightest taint in the air, in everything with which they come in contact, as to impart the unmistakable evidence of any negligence, in the taste and flavor of the butter. It is safe to say, therefore, that good butter depends more upon the manufacture than upon any other one thing, and perhaps than all others put together. So important is this point, that a judicious writer remarks that “in every district where good butter is made it is universally attributed to the richness of the pastures, though it is a well-known fact that, take a skilful dairymaid from that district into another, where good butter is not usually made, and where, of course, the pastures are deemed very unfavorable, she will make butter as good as she used to do. And bring one from this last district into the other, and she will find that she cannot make better butter there than she did before, unless she takes lessons from the servants, or others whom she finds there;” and a French writer very justly observes that “the particular nature of Bretagne butter, whose color, flavor, and consistence, are so much prized, depends neither on the pasture nor on the particular species of cow, but on the mode of making;” and this will hold, to a considerable extent, in every country where butter is made. Many things, indeed, concur to produce the best results, and it would be useless to underrate the importance of any; but, with the best of cows to impart the proper color and consistency to butter, the sweetest feed and the purest water to secure a delicate flavor, the utmost care must still be bestowed by the dairymaid upon every process of manufacture, or else the best of milk and cream will be spoiled, or produce an article which will bring only a low price in the market, when, with greater skill, it might have obtained the highest.