sketch > .Bein Hazmanim furloughs started in the times of Gemara ”I don’t want to see any of you (in Yeshiva) in the month of Nissan and in the month of Tishrei.
I think you have it backwards. Rather, then bein hazmanim for 2 months, it was meeting (kallah) for 2 months – Adar and Elul, indeed at the end of the harvest season. Most students worked and “learned from home” the rest of the time. They were not “extra hands”, they were primary workers. For example, R Aha b Yaakov sent his son to learn full-time, and when the son did not do well, he left the son to work on the farm and went to learn himself.