1851 - Piseach a’ Tighinn air Eaconamaidh na Sgìre (1851 – 1900) – Years of Recovery (1851 – 1900)

The economy was already recovering by 1851; in Valtos there were “150 cows and 400 sheep, crops both of potatoes and grain more productive than for the last two preceding years”

^{Sir John MacNeil Report, 1851}

Agricultural prices were good and cattle emerged again as the most important cash produce. By the 1860s the seasonal outflow of workers went beyond Caithness, travelling to work at the southern harvest and as domestic servants and industrial labourers in the cities. Sheep-farms, sporting estates and the manses provided local, seasonal and casual employment.