It is to the credit of business leaders north and south in Maine that a meeting today will highlight economic opportunities in the northern half of the state. This kind of cooperation is essential for both ends of the state (and the middle, for that matter) to succeed.

The business leaders from Aroostook and Cumberland counties met in the southern part of the state yesterday and will fly north today. They would learn a good deal more about Maine’s inadequate transportation system if they tried to drive the distance, but perhaps they are already aware of the problem and so opted to fly. In any event, they will certainly bump along enough scenic byways that businesses have bypassed on their tour between Frenchville and Houlton to get a sense of the roads.

A sure bet is that the business people from Cumberland don’t need to be told how the southern part of the state suffers when the northern portion fails to thrive. The school-funding debate in the last legislative session was evidence of that. And though cross subsidies in any service are often complex and tangled threads, it is safe to say that the support burden drops for everyone if all parts of the state prosper.

Sending residents of southern Maine to The County to get a sense of how the other half lives is not new. The Maine Development Foundation, which is supporting this project, has given tours to lawmakers for several years. A couple of legislators who took the tour a few years back said they were amazed by the number of people who lived here. One confessed to never having been farther north than Augusta; the other said he once visited Bangor. They were well-intentioned, but they had been making laws that affected the entire state without having seen a good portion of it.

The lesson is simple — that those in the more prosperous south won’t think of the north unless they have seen it — but it is extremely important. That Aroostook leaders raised the $17,000 necessary to make this visit happen speaks well of a community focused on its future. Perhaps more planning money, financed from natural-gas line property taxes that Gov. Angus King pledged last year to rural development, could make the visits a regular event.

Both ends of the state have plenty to teach each other, and visits to highlight business opportunities in The County are especially welcome. Let’s hope the visit today does not end without a commitment to repeat the tour in the near future.