About Saruman and the Shire

[Raynor]

Firstly, Saruman, I believe, had fallen into darkness (though not openly), far before Gandalf discovered that he had. FAR before it.

In the Tale of years, 2851 is the year in which Saruman began desiring the possesion of the ring:

2851
The White Council meets. Gandalf urges an attack on Dol Guldur. Saruman overrules him. [It afterwards became clear that Saruman had then begun to desire to possess the One Ring himself, and he hoped that it might reveal itself, seeking its master, if Sauron were let be for a time.] Saruman begins to search near the Gladden Fields.

In the last version given in Unfinished Tales, apparently rejected, Gandalf already suspected at that council that Saruman was becoming corrupt, hence the puffing of ring smokes in a sign of insolence, which gave all sorts of funny ideas to the paranoid Saruman concerning the hobbits and the ring.